PR 355 
.C5 S3 

1 1913a 
Copy 1 



the 



"CHANSON D'AVENTURE" IN 
MIDDLE ENGLISH 



a 2Di0sertation 

PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF BRYN B1AWR COLLEGE IN PARTIAL 

FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE 

OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



HELEN ESTABROOK SANDISON 



BRYN MAWE, PENNSYLVANIA 
APRIL, 1913 



THE "CHANSON D'AVENTURE" IN 
MIDDLE ENGLISH 



& SDissntation 



PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF BRYN MAWR COLLEGE IN PARTIAL 

FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE 

OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



BY 

HELEN ESTABROOK SANDISON 



BRYN MAWR, PENNSYLVANIA 
APEIL, 1913 






TK3 

•^ ,3 



COPYEIGHT, 1913, BY BBYN MAWS COLLEGE 



*♦« eon ••« 
23 MAY 13 



J. H. FOKST COMPANY, PBINTEBS 
BALTIMOBE 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Peeface v 

Register of Abbreviated Titles vii 

I. INTRODUCTION 1 

A The Chanson d'Aventure: Definition of the 

Type 1 

B The Chanson d'Aventure in Mediaeval France 3 

C Limits of the Present Discussion 22 

II. The Conventional Fobm 25 

III. The Themes . 46 

A Amorous 46 

B Beligious 68 

C Didactic 81 

D Miscellaneous 88 

Conclusion 94 

Appendix A Texts Hitherto Unprinted 100 

Appendix B Alphabetical Register of Middle 

English Chansons d'Aventure 130 

Appendix C Supplementary Register of Other 

Pieces Cited in the Discussion 148 

Subject Index 151 



,-;l: 



^ 



PREFACE 



The following study, practically as it stands, was presented 
to the Faculty of Bryn Mawr College in May, 1911, in 
partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of 
Doctor of Philosophy. Beginning with an examination of 
the conventional narrative preface found in a number of 
the lyrics of Harleian ms. 2253 and the Vernon ms., it was 
soon extended to include a study of the whole group of Middle 
English lyrics possessing such a preface, and of the early 
French chansons whence they are derived. The results of 
that investigation are here set forth. The preliminary dis- 
cussion of the French originals is based chiefly on the re- 
searches of Gaston Paris and M. Jeanroy, and on the collec- 
tion of chansons d'av&nture contained in Bartsch's Altfran- 
zosische Romanzen und Pastouretten; it stands as a mere 
summary of the chief points necessary to furnish a basis of 
comparison with the English derivatives, and makes no claim 
to exhaustiveness. The discussion of the Middle English 
development of the type is based on a group of one hundred 
and thirty-four lyrics, which seem, after careful considera- 
tion, to fulfil most thoroughly the formal requirements set 
by the French prototypes; these are classified in Appendix 
B in four groups, Amorous, Religious, Didactic, and Mis- 
cellaneous, with references to all known manuscript and 
printed sources for each poem. Twelve of the lyrics, 
which have not been printed elsewhere, so far as I know, 
appear in Appendix A. Appendix C presents a list of pieces 
cited, chiefly in the notes, as examples of chansons d'aventure 
dating later than 1550, or as examples of other Middle Eng- 
lish types comparable in certain features to the chanson 
d'aventure type. 

It is a pleasure to acknowledge my great obligations to 



those who have assisted me in the preparation of this disser- 
tation. To Professor Carleton Brown, of Bryn Mawr Col- 
lege, I am most indebted. He first suggested to me the sub- 
ject of this investigation, and he has assisted me throughout 
my work by supplying many important references and help- 
ful suggestions, by carefully criticising the dissertation in 
manuscript, and by going over the proof sheets. From his 
unfailing interest and enthusiasm I have received constant 
encouragement. I am also under obligations to Professor 
Upham, of Bryn Mawr College, who has kindly read the 
book in proof. 

I take this opportunity also to express my gratitude for 
most generous assistance to the authorities of the British 
Museum, the Cambridge University Library, the Bodleian 
Library, and the College of Arms, to the magistrates of the 
Corporation of Tenterden, who allowed me to examine the 
oldest record book, to Lord Harlech, who very kindly sent 
the Porkington ms. to Oxford that I might there examine it 
and make transcripts from it, to Father William Bodkin, 
S. J., Rector of Stonyhurst College, who courteously pro- 
vided me with a transcript from Stonyhurst ms. ~No. 23, and 
to the librarians of Columbia University and of Bryn Mawr 
College. 

H. E. S. 

Betn Mawb, Pa., 
April, 1913. 



REGISTER OF ABBREVIATED TITLES 



[This register presents merely a selected list of titles referred 
to in the notes and the Appendices by abbreviated titles requiring 
explanation.] 

Bann. MS. Hunt. Club. — The Bannatyne Manuscript Compiled 

by George Bannatyne, 1568. Printed for the Hunterian 

Club. Glasgow, 1873-1881. 
Bartsch. — Altfranzbsische Romanzen und Pastourellen. Heraus- 

gegeben von Karl Bartsch. Leipzig, 1870. 
Bartsch, Chrest. — Chrestomathie de VAncien Frangais, (VIII e - 

XV e Siecles). Par Karl Bartsch. Septieme Edition, 

Bevue et Corrigee Par A. Horning. Leipzig, 1901. 
Boddeker, Altengl. Dicht. — Altenglische Dichtungen des MS. 

Harl. 2253. Herausgegeben von K. Boddeker. Berlin, 

1878. 
Buke of the Howlat. — The Buke of the Howlat, in Scottish 

Alliterative Poems in Riming Stanzas. Edited by F. J. 

Amours. Scot. Text Soc. Edinburgh and London, 1897, 

pp. 47 ff. 
Chambers, Med. Lyric. — Some Aspects of Mediceval Lyric. By 

E. K. Chambers (in Chambers and Sidgwick, pp. 259 ff.) 
Chambers and Sidgwick. — Early English Lyrics, Amorous, Di- 
vine, Moral and Trivial. Chosen by E. K. Chambers 

and F. Sidgwick. London, 1907. 
Chappell. Old Engl. Pop. Music. — Old English Popular Music. 

William Chappell. New (revised) edition by H. Ellis 

Wooldridge. London and New York, 1893. 
Charles d'Orleans. — Poesies Completes de Charles d'Orleans. 

Par Charles d'Hericault. Paris, 1874. 
Child, Ballads. — The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. 

Edited by F. J. Child. Boston and New York, 1882- 

1898. 
Deschamps. — (Euvres Completes de Eustache Deschamps. Pub- 

liees par le Marquis de Queux de Saint-Hilaire et G-. 

Eaynaud. Soc. des Anc. Textes Fr. Paris, 1878-1903. 



Vlll REGISTER OF ABBREVIATED TITLES 

Dunbar, ed. Laing. — The Poems of William Dunbar, now first 
collected. With Notes, and a Memoir of his Life, by D. 
Laing. Edinburgh, 1834. 

Dunbar, Scot. Text Soc. — The Poems of William Dunbar. 
Edited by John Small. Introduction by M. J. G. Mackay. 
Scot. Text Soc. Edinburgh and London, 1893. 

Dyboski, Ball. MS. 35J/-. — Songs, Carols, and other Miscellaneous 
Poems, from the Balliol MS. 354, Richard Hill's Com- 
monplace-Booh. Edited by E. Dyboski. E. E. T. S., 
Extra Ser. ci. London, 1907. 

Fliigel, Engl. Weihnachtslieder. — Englische Weihnachtslieder aus 
einer Handschrift des Balliol College zu Oxford. Mit- 
geteilt von E. Elugel. (In Forschungen zur deutschen 
Philologie. Festgabe fiir Eudolf Hildebrand. Leipzig, 
1894, pp. 52 ft). 

Elugel, Neuengl. Leseb. — Neuanglisches Lesebuch nach den 
Handschrift en und Altesten Druchen. Herausgegeben 
von E. Elugel. I. Band. Die Zeit Heinrichs VIII. 
Halle a. S. 1895. 

Eurnivall, Captain Cox. — Captain Cox, his Ballads and Boohs; 
or Robert Laneham's Letter. Ee-edited by E. J. Furni- 
vall. Printed for the Ballad Society. London, 1871. 

Furnivall, Early Engl. Poems. — Early English Poems and Lives 
of Saints. Copied and edited by E. J. Eurnivall. Pub- 
lished for the Philological Society. Berlin, 1862. 

Gude and Godlie Ballatis. — A Compendious Booh of Godly and 
Spiritual Songs Commonly Known as ' The Gude and 
Godlie Ballatis.' Eeprinted from the edition of 1567. 
Edited by A. F. Mitchell. Scottish Text Society. Edin- 
burgh and London, 1897. 

Halliwell, Early Engl. Misc. — Early English Miscellanies, in 
Prose and Verse. Edited by J. 0. Halliwell. Warton 
Club. London, 1855. (Texts from Porkington MS. 10.) 

Halliwell, Lydgate's Minor Poems. — A Selection from the Minor 
Poems of Dan John Lydgate. Edited by J. 0. Halliwell. 
Percy Soc. n, London, 1840. 

Halliwell, Nugai Poet. — Nugce Poetical. Select Pieces of Old 
English Popular Poetry. Edited by J. 0. Halliwell. 
London, 1844. 



REGISTER OF ABBREVIATED TITLES IX 

Haupt, Fr. Volkslieder. — Franzosische Volhslieder. Zusammen 

gestellt von Moriz Haupt und aus seinem Nachlass Her- 

ausgegeben. Leipzig, 1877. 
Henryson, Scot. Text Soc. — The Poems of Robert Henryson. 

Edited by G. G. Smith. Scottish Text Society. Edin- 
burgh and London, 1906, 1908. 
Herrig's Archiv. — Archiv fur das Studium der Neueren 

Sprachen und Litteraturen. Braunschweig, 1846 to date. 
Hymns to V. and C. — Hymns to the Virgin and Christ, The s 

Parliament of Devils, and other Religious Poems, Chiefly 

from the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lambeth MS. No. 

853. Edited by F. J. Furnivall. E. E. T. S., Orig. Ser. 

24. London, 1867. [Keprinted 1895.] 
Jarnstrom, Rec. de Chansons Pieuses. — Recueil de Chansons 

Pieuses du XIII e Siecle. Publiees par E. Jarnstrom. I. 

Helsingfors, 1910. Imprimerie de la Societe de Littera- 

ture Finnoise. 
Jeanroy, Chansons. — Les Chansons. Par Alfred Jeanroy. Ch. 

v, vol. i of Histovre de la Langue et de la Litterature 

frangaise. Publiee sous la direction de L. Petit de Julle- 

ville. Paris, 1896-1899. 
Jeanroy, Origines. — Les Origines de la Poesie Lyrique en France 

au Moyen-Age. Par A. Jeanroy. Paris, 1889. [Second 

edition, 1904.] 
Laing, Early Pop. Poetry. — Early Popular Poetry of Scotland 

and the Northern Border. Edited by D. Laing [under 

the titles, Select Remains, etc., and Early Metrical Tales, 

etc.] in 1822 and 1826. Ee-arranged and revised by W. 

C. Hazlitt. London, 1895. 
Laing, Select Remains. — Select Remains of the Ancient Popular 

Poetry of Scotland. Edited by D. Laing, 1822. Ee- 

edited by J. Small. Edinburgh, 1885. 
Lydgate, ed. MacCracken. The Minor Poems of John Lydgate. 

Edited by H. N. MacCracken. Part i. The Lydgate 

Canon; Religious Poems. E. E. T. S., Extra Ser. evil. 

London and Oxford, 1911. 
Minor Poems Vernon MS. II. — The Minor Poems of the Vernon 

MS. Part ii. Edited by F. J. Furnivall. E. E. T. S., 

Orig. Ser. 117. London, 1901. 



X REGISTER OF ABBREVIATED TITLES 

Neilson, Court of Love. — The Origins and Sources of the Court 
of Love. By W. A. Neilson. Harvard Studies and 
Notes in Philology and Literature, vi. Boston, 1899. 

Padelford, XVI. Cent. Lyrics. — Early Sixteenth Century Lyrics. 
Edited by F. M. Padelford. Belles-Lettres Series. Bos- 
ton and London, 1907. 

Parducci. — La Canzone de " Mai Maritata " in Francia nei 
Secoli XV-XVI. A. Parducci. Rom. xxxvm. pp. 
286 ff. 

Paris, Chansons. — Chansons du XV 'e Siecle. Publiees par G. 
Paris. Soc. des Anc. Textes Fr. Paris, 1875. 

Paris, Origines, I, n. — Les Origines de la Po'esie Lyrique en 
France au Moyen Age. Gaston Paris. (Eeview of Jean- 
roy's Origines, appearing in four installments : I. Journal 
des Savants, 1891, pp. 674 £f., 729 ff. n. Ibid., 1892, 
pp. 155 ff., 407 ff.) 

Pari, of Thre Ages. — The Parlement of the Thre Ages, an Alli- 
terative. Poem of the XIV th Century, edited with appen- 
dices containing the poem of Wynnere and Wastoure, by 
I. Gollancz, Eoxburghe Club. London, 1897. 

Patterson, M. Engl. Pen. Lyric. — The Middle English Peni- 
tential Lyric. A Study and Collection of Early Religious 
Verse. By P. A. Patterson. New York, 1911. 

Percy Folio MS. — Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript. Ballads 
and Romances. Edited by J. W. Hales and F. J. Furni- 
vall. London, 1867-1868. 

Pillet. — Studien zur Pastourelle. A. Pillet. (In Beitrage zur 
romanischen und englischen Philologie. Breslau, 1902.) 

Pinkerton, Anc. Scot. Poems. — Ancient Scotish Poems Pub- 
lished from the MS. Collections of Sir Richard Maitland. 
[Edited by John Pinkerton.] London, 1786. 

Polit. Relig. and Love Poems. — Political, Religious, and Love 
Poems from the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lambeth MS. 
No. 306 and Other Sources. Edited by F. J. Furnivall. 
E. E. T. S., Orig. Ser. 15. London, 1866. Ee-edited 
1903. 

Pollard, XV. Cent. Prose and Verse. — Fifteenth Century Prose 
and Verse. With an Introduction by A. W. Pollard. 
(An English Garner.) New York, n. d. 



REGISTER OF ABBREVIATED TITLES XI 

Eamsay, The Ever Green. — The Ever Green. Being A Collec- 
tion of Scots Poems, Wrote by the Ingenious before 1600. 
Published by Allen Eamsay. Edinburgh, 1761. 

Eaynaud, Motets. — Recueil de Motets Frangais des XII e et 
XIII e Siecles. Publies par Gr. Eaynaud. Paris, 1882, 
1884. 

Eeed, Engl. Lyr. Poetry. — English Lyrical Poetry from its Ori- 
gins to the Present Time. By E. B. Eeed. New Haven 
and London, 1912. 

Bel. Ant. — Beliquice Antiques. Scraps from Ancient Manu- 
scripts, Illustrating Chiefly Early English Literature and 
the English Language. Edited by T. Wright and J. 0. 
Halliwell. London, 1845. 

Eickert, Carols. — Ancient English Christmas Carols, MCCC to 
MDCC. Collected and arranged by Edith Eickert. The 
New Medieval Library. London and New York, 1910. 

Eimbault, Little Book. — A Little Booh of Songs and Ballads, 
Gathered from Ancient Musiclc Boohs, MS. and Printed. 
By E. F. Eimbault. London, 1851. 

Eitson, Anc. Songs. — Ancient Songs and Ballads from the Reign 
of King Henry the Second to the Revolution. Collected 
by J. Eitson. Third Edition Carefully Eevised by W. C. 
Hazlitt. London, 1877. 

Rom. — Romania, Recueil Trimestriel Consacre a I'Etude des 
Langues et des Litteratures Romanes. Paris, 1872 to 
date. 

Scheler, Dits et Contes. — Dits et Contes de Baudouin de Conde 
et de Son Fils Jean de Conde. Publies par A. Scheler. 
Bruxelles, 1866-1867. 

Schipper, William Dunbar. — William Dunbar. Sein Leben und 
Seine Gedichte. Von Dr. J. Schipper. Berlin, 1884. 

Sibbald, Chron. Scot. Poetry. — Chronicle of Scotish Poetry; 
from the Thirteenth Century to the Union of the Crowns. 
J. Sibbald. Edinburgh, 1802. 

Skeat, Chauc. Pieces. — Chaucerian and Other Pieces. Edited 
by W. W. Skeat. Oxford, 1897. Supplement to the 
Oxford Chaucer, 1894. 



Xll REGISTER OF ABBREVIATED TITLES 

Stimming, Die Motette. — Die Altfranzosischen Motette der Bam- 
berger Handschrift. Herausgegeben von A. Stimming. 
Gedr. f. d. Gesellsch. f. rom. lit. Bd. xm. Dresden, 
1906. 

Thurau, Der Refrain. — Der Refrain in der franzbsischen Chan- 
son. G. Thurau. Litter arliistorische Forschungen, Heft 
xxm. Berlin, 1901. 

Turnbull, Visions of Tundale. — The Visions of Tundale; To- 
gether with Metrical Moralizations and Other Fragments 
of Early Poetry, Hitherto Inedited. [Edited by W. B. 
D. D. Turnbull.] Edinburgh, 1843. 

Twenty-six Poems. — Twenty-Six Political and Other Poems 
from the Oxford MSS. Digby 102 and Douce 822. Edited 
by J. Kail. Part i. E. E. T. S., Orig. Ser. 124. 
London, 1904. 

Wright, Songs and Ball. Koxb. Club. — Songs and Ballads, 
With Other Short Poems, Chiefly of the Reign of Philip 
and Mary. Edited by T. Wright. [Eoxburghe Club.] 
London, 1860. (Texts from ms. Ashmole 48.) 

Wright, Songs and Carols, 1836. — Songs and Carols, Printed 
from a Manuscript in the Sloane Collection in the Brit- 
ish Museum. Edited by T. Wright. London, 1836. 
(Twenty texts from Sloane ms. 2593.) 

Wright, Songs and Carols, Percy Soc. — Songs and Carols, Now 
First Printed, from a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Cen- 
tury. Edited by T. Wright. Percy Soe. xxm. London, 
1847. (Texts from ms. Bodl. Engl. Poet. e. 1.) 

Wright, Songs and Carols, Warton Club. — Songs and Carols 
from a Manuscript in the British Museum of the Fif- 
teenth Century. Edited by T. Wright. [Warton Club.] 
London, 1856. (Texts from ms. Sloane 2593.) 

Wright. Spec. Lyr. Poetry. — Specimens of Lyric Poetry, Com- 
posed in England in the Reign of Edward the First. 
Edited from ms. Harl. 2253, by T. Wright. Percy Soc. 
iv. London, 1842. 

Wynnere and Wastoure. Cf. Pari, of Thre Ages, above. 



INTKODTTCTION 

A. The Chanson d'Aventure: Definition oe the Type 

The prevailing seriousness of early English poetry is 
notably lightened at the beginning of the fourteenth century 
by a group of lyrics, 1 many of which celebrate the theme 
that " lenten ys come wi(? loue to toune." Among them a 
certain type of song insistently challenges our attention, — 
the type in which the poet tells us that as he fared on a 
spring morning through the forest, or as he rode by Eybbes- 
dale, he met a " wel feyr " maid to whom he straightway 
offered his devotion. Sometimes he relates that, as he rode, 
his heart was filled with love-longing for a Maiden, his joy 
and his " beste play," who was able " (?urh hire bysechynge " 
to bring him to the bliss of heaven. The precedent set by 
these early wayfarers is not disregarded. Lovers-errant are 
silent, it is true, during more than a century after the day 
of the Harleian manuscript; but in the meantime their 
devout brothers continue to tell of divine events in which 
they have some share; one woos the blessed Virgin, in the 
guise of a bird, in the forest, and another watches the 
Maiden-mother lulling her little Son. In the same period 
sermonizing adventurers are even more numerous. A four- 
teenth century clerk passing by a woodside hears a bird 
discoursing on amends-making; a successor in the fifteenth 

1 Harl. ms. 2253, c. 1310, ed. Boddeker, Altengl. Dicht. 



Z THE CHAN-SOS" D AVENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

century listens to an old man's sombre disquisition on worldly 
vanity. The clerks, in fact, hold the monopoly in these 
woodland adventures until Tudor times, when they make 
way for worldly poets who listen in the wilderness to the 
laments of love-lorn Besse or of a lady fallen from royal 
grace. 

These short narratives are always introduced by phrases 
that are manifestly conventional. 

Als i me rode this endre dai 
o mi [pleyinge], 

is the formula used by a poet who hears the sad love-song of 
a little maiden. 

Ase y me rod ]?is ender day 
by grene wode to seche play, 

are the words with which Mary's devout adorer begins his 
song. The sermon on amends is prefaced by the obviously 
mendacious remark: 

Bi a wode as I gon ryde 
Walkynge al miself alone. 

The form that is the common inheritance of all these lyrics 
has two distinguishing features: the poet introduces himself 
by means of a short narrative preface; he pretends that he 
himself witnesses or participates in the action that he re- 
ports. The songs are therefore narrative and dramatic. 
They are at the same time lyric in form and in spirit, with 
the exception of those modifications that employ the con- 
ventional setting merely as formal preface to didactic themes. 

An adequate name for so complex a form is not easy to 
find. Though French scholars have recognized the frame- 
work as a common feature of two different- types of Old 
Trench lyric, 2 — the chanson dramatique and the pastourelle, 

2 Jeanroy, Origines, pp. 9, 84 ff . ; Chansons, pp. 348, 352. 



INTRODUCTION 6 

— they have not suggested any term to designate the single 
category to which both types, by virtue of that framework, 
belong. The only available term is that recently proposed 
by Chambers. 3 In his review of the Middle English lyrics 
and their French sources, he suggests that the French poems 
in question be called chansons d'aventure/ — a phrase which 
he subsequently applies to the analogous poetic forms in Eng- 
land. For the type as a whole, the name is appropriate, in 
that it not only indicates the peculiar combination of narra- 
tive and dramatic with lyric elements, but also emphasizes 
the adventure, which is a structural essential. In the case 
of the English poems the employment of a foreign term is 
perhaps less satisfactory; but no English equivalent exists, 
and " chanson d'aventure " defies translation into a conven- 
ient English phrase. The aptness and convenience of the 
French term accordingly outweigh the single objection that 
may be urged against it. Moreover there is a certain advan- 
tage in a constant reminder that the origin of the English 
form is to be found among the lyrics composed over-sea. 



B. The Chanson d'Aventure in Mediaeval Feance 

The foreign songs echoed by the Middle English chansons 
d'aventure 5 appear in Northern France during the twelfth 



3 Med. Lyric, p. 266. 

* This use of ' chanson d'aventure ' is to be distinguished from the 
occasional employment of the same phrase to designate the long 
roman d'aventure; e. g., Florence de Rome, ed. Wallenskold, Soc. des 
Anc. Textes Fr., title-page. 

5 The relationship of the English songs to the French has often been 
noted; cf. Aust, Herrig's Archiv, lxx. p. 286; Lauchert, Engl. Stud. 
xvi. pp. 140 ff.; Padelford, XVI. Cent. Lyrics, pp. xxxviff.; Chambers, 
Med. Lyric, pp. 274 f.; Patterson, M. Engl. Pen. Lyric, pp. 37 ff.; Reed, 
Engl. Lyr. Poetry, Ch. II; etc' 



4 THE CHANSON D AVENT¥EE IF MIDDLE ENGLISH 

century* 6 They speedily achieve a high popularity; their 
prime is already past, their period of elaboration, modifica- 
tion, and decline is already well on its way, by the beginning 
of the fourteenth century, — the time at which the English 
derivatives first appear in the manuscripts. But the tradition 
represented by the French songs persists ; it is continued by 
Froissart, made use of by Deschamps and Charles d'Orleans, 
and echoed among the popular songs of the fifteenth and 
succeeding centuries. 

The French lyrics of adventure possess certain affinities 
with popular song, and are in fact based upon it, as Gaston 
Paris has demonstrated. 7 The themes — the love-lament of 
a young girl, the happy talk of meeting lovers — preserve 
motifs characteristic of folk-poetry; further evidence for a 
connection with primitive popular song exists in the pre- 
dominance given to the woman's point of view in the por- 
trayal of love, and the insistence on the joy of returning 
Spring found in some of the refrains and echoed even in the 
stereotyped setting. The framework that encloses these 
originally popular themes is, nevertheless, clearly the contri- 
bution of professional poets. The jongleur was probably the 
first to adopt the songs from popular tradition and to 
embellish them with a narrative prelude in which he himself 
appeared; from him the convention passed to the trouvere. 8 

*The summary view of the French chansons d'aventure is based on 
Jeanroy, Origines and Chansons, and Paris, Origines, all passim. For 
the pastourelle, cf. particularly Pillet; for the late development of the 
chanson de mal marine, Parducci. 

7 The theory that the ultimate origin of all French lyric poetry is in 
the songs sung in Poitou and Limousin by women at the popular fetes 
de max may be accepted with some reservation as far as it concerns 
the chansons d'aventure (which belong to the so-called poesie populaire) 
whether or not for the chanson courtoise; cf. Bedier, Rev. des Deux 
Mondes, cxxxv. pp. 160 ff. ; Voretzsch, Einfilhr. in d. Stud. d. altfr. Lit. 
pp. 188-196; Warren, Mod. Philol. IX. p. 469; Eeed, Engl. Lyr. Poetry, 
p. 25. 

8 The trouvere occasionally prefaces the chanson d'aventure with the 



INTRODUCTION" 

The enthusiasm with which these conscious artists adopted 
the form is probably attributable in part to the pleasure 
which they obtained from mingling in pretense with the 
denizens of a humbler world before whom they might exploit 
their greater sophistication. 

The manner in which the French poet ushers himself 
upon the scene is traditional. As a rule he mentions the 
day, usually I'autrier or I 'autre jour, 9 and the hour, regularly 
near dawn; 10 he names or suggests the season (almost always 
le douz tens nouvel), often investing it with much grace: 

En mai la rosee que nest la nor, 

que la rose est bele au point du jor. 11 

conventional opening, characteristic of the courtly chanson d" 'amour: 
Au nouviau tens que nest la violete 
par mi les bos et mainte autre fiorete 
sospris de novele amor 
vueil faire chanconete; 
si la ferai sans sejor 
cortoise et mignotete. 
avant ier au point du jor 



errai ma sentelete (ni. 45). 
Cf. also I. 46; cf. I. 66, in. 52, I. 52, end. (The reference to French 
texts in this note and those following are to Bartsch, unless otherwise 
indicated. ) 

9 In approximately half of the chansons d'aventure. Frequent vari- 
ants: avant hier, etc., I. 48, 43, II, 50; un jour, etc., n. 17; par un 
matin, etc., I. 70. In later adaptations: n'a pas long temps, etc. (Des- 
champs, in. pp. 47, 56, 345, X. p. lxxii; Charles d'OrlSans, n. p. 168) ; 
also definite week-days or feast-days (i. 34, in. 59 and 60, Froissart; 
Deschamps, x. p. lxxvii, ill. p. 251; cf. le premier jour de mai, I. 69, in. 
29, Charles d'Orleans, i. p. 79, n. pp. 122, 214); awen, in. 57 (Frois- 
sart) ; un jour de V autre semaine, in. 44 (Moniot de Paris) ; ceste 
annee presente, Charles d'Orleans, I. p. 120 (and cf. n. p, 169). De- 
scriptions of the day are rarely added; cf. in. 23. 

10 A I'ajornee, un petit devant le jor, etc.; Bartsch, p. xiii, I. 3S. Less 
definitely par un matin, main, etc., i. 64, n. 105. A later hour is 
sometimes implied; cf. i. 61, etc. Instances of evening encounters are 
rare; cf. I. 48, II. 28, 1." 23, and Raynaud, Motets, I. p. 178, where au 
serain contradicts par I main; Vieux Noels, Nantes, 1876, in. 90 
(I 'autre nuit) ; Haupt, Fr. Volkslieder, p. 126. 

11 n. 62. The month is usually May (I. 27; Bom. vni. p. 336) ; less 



D THE CHANSON D AVENTUEE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

He appears 12 alone, 13 ridingy or less often walking, 14 by a 
wood or along a meadow-side, 15 Ions de gent; 16 he is pensis 



often April (i. 30 a, b, 39, II. 21, 112, III. 8, 25) ; rarely aoust (hi. 25, 
II. 73 ; Deschamps, in. p. 62 ) . The season is indicated by le tens novel, 
le comancement d'este, etc. (i. 46, n. 24; cf. II. 22) ; more pedantically 

(in an early religious parallel, Bartsch, Chrest. p. 62) : Quant li solleiz 
converset en leon, en icel tens qu'es ortus pliadon. Summer is rare 

(cf. I. 21, 1. 20, i. 52, ii. 24, 105); winter is substituted (n. 17, 23, 
ill. 1) to vary a trite convention, not to fit the mood of the poem. 
When the season is described, there is usually some suggestion of 
Spring's power to bring joy and the longing to love (ii. 22), to move 
birds to song (ii. 15), and to bring forth tender grass and buds (i. 46) ; 
but later texts tend to prosaic elaboration (cf. Hi. 25, and Deschamps, 
in. p. 62 : Ou moys d'aoust qu'om soye les fromens ) . 

12 Quant je (me) chevauchoie, si com j'aloie pansant (i. 49, 39) repre- 
sent one formula, but the simple preterite (chevauchai, I. 39) is much 
more common. Sometimes the poet's presence is first indicated by the 
verb that introduces the encounter (oi, vi, trouvai, choisi, I. 27, 36, 48, 
50) or the poet's approach (vols la veoir, Hi. 51; cf. II. 57). (Me) 
levai replaces (ii. 12) or more commonly introduces (i. 38) the verb 
of motion. 

13 Tot seus, senz compaignie, etc., I. 49, 37. 

14 He definitely alludes to his riding in more than half the chansons. 
Most often he uses the verb chevauchai; frequently he mentions the 
horse (cheval, palefroi, morel) from which he dismounts (i. 40) and 
which he ties to a tree (n. 18, 58). Substitutes for chevauchai are 
aloie, aloie errant, erroie (I. 44, in. 4, I. 42) and traversal, alai les 
(un oouchet) , etc. (i. 65, n. 50). The use of these verbs (as also 
oi, vi, etc.) does not necessarily imply that the poet is not riding; 
cf. I. 65, in. 36, where the horse is mentioned, and n. 8 (m'alai 
chevalchant) . An inactive poet is rare: cf. I. 61 {ere, oi) , I. 27 (oi, 
m'assis, m'i endormi) , I. 52. 

15 The scene is almost never en mi forest (n. 28). Cf. the frequent 
use of lez, joste, pres, defors (i. 39, n. 11, 75) ; Ions I'oriere de Vaunoi 

(ii. 49; cf. hi. 2, 12, n. Ill, i. 64) ; entre un hois et un pre (ii. 105, 
cf. ii. 22). The scene is often the boix (n. 11), boix ki verdoie 

(ii. 46), but more often the boschel, etc. (n. 22, 48, in. 36) ; vergier, 
I. 29 (even en mi forest, n. 28); jardin, i. 30 a, etc.; rozier, I. 70. 
The forest is very rare; cf. I. 65, II. 28, and the symbolic forest 
d'Ennuyeuse Tristesse, Charles d'Orlgans, I. p. 82; cf. I. p. 120 
and ii. pp. 163-169. — For prael, cf. II. 20; un pandant, etc. (in- 
frequent), H. 2, 63, I. 46, ill. 2, 40; un vaucel, etc., (infrequent) 



INTRODUCTION I 

chief enclin 17 or, somewhat less frequently, dedusant, juant/ 8 
and has come forth to seek distraction : 

jouer m'en aloie. 19 
When he chances 20 to catch a glimpse of a fair shepherdess 



II. 73, in. 15, 43, 58; le rivage d'une riviere, i. 39, or une fontenele, 
I. 63, etc. Less definite designations of place are: ma voie or chamin 
(ii. 6, I. 42) ; par une contree, etc. (in. 3, 25; not frequent). Place- 
names and land-marks appear, the former frequently; cf. dehors Paris 
(i. 69), sor la rive de Same (i. 68), entre Biaulieu et la nueve abeie 
(I. 65; cf. I. 33, II. 3). — Even in the religious and moral adaptations 
the scene is in pree (Bartsch, p. xiii) or boscage (Rom. vm. p. 336). 
The only allegorical settings are the forests of Charles d'Orleans and 
his school (cf. references in this note and add, En la chambre de ma 
pensee, I. p. 133). 

16 n. 33; cf. ii. 54, in. 28, 37, and the destor, n. 18. 

17 Ii. 4, in. 7; cf. I. 21, 27 and passim. The self-conscious trouvere 
is much occupied in these prefaces with his feelings. His pensiveness 
is often caused by love, I. 44; it is thus explained in I. 51: pensant a 
un chant que je fis; it is spoken of as habitual in n. 33 (pencis com 
suis sovent) . Often it has no ostensible cause. (The love-soliloquy in 
chanson d'aventure form is throughout explanatory of the announced 
mood.) In some cases sad spirits stand in contradiction to other 
details of the prelude (i. 69, II. 53) ; in others they fail to appear even 
though the selection of a gloomy season might lead us to expect them 
(n. 17, 23, in. 1). Plainly the poet's pensiveness is traditional. 

18 1. 72, II. 53. Cf. per grant druerie, etc., I. 33, n. 92, 111. 

19 1. 49; the expression is formulary. Cf. also deporteir, deduire, 
esbanoier, resjoir, pour passer temps (ii. 53, 13, 43, 64; Eaynaud, 
Rondeaux . . . du XV Siecle, p. 147). Other expressions of motive 
are: por oilier ma dolor et por alegier, por moi dedurre et soulaicier 
(i. 38, 70) ; por oir les chans de ces oxillons (ii. 2; cf. I. 29), por la 
verdor (i. 61; cf. I. 30 a, b), coillir la flor (i. 38; cf. I. 73). The 
quest is sometimes definitely amorous; cf. the poet who would faire 
novele amie, n. 78 (cf. I. 44). Sometimes it is aimless: cf. chevauchai 
. . . conme aventure gent maine (in. 44; cf. n. 92, 111; Stimming, 
Die Motette, p. 90, no. 19 a). 

20 The chance nature of the encounter is invariably implied, seldom 
expressed; cf. vi par aventure (n. 19, in. 41). Sometimes the poet, 
on the watch for diversion, notices the amorous song of the rosignox 
before he chances to see the pucelete or dame and chevelier (i. 52, 70). 



8 THE CHANSON" D A VENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

or a dame 21 who sits tote soule 22 under a tree, 23 or to hear a 
bit of her song, 24 his adventure has begun. His preliminary- 
action is pre-ordained for him; like all his brother-poets, he 
must pause, giving himself time to observe and perhaps to 
describe the woman's beauty. 25 He may then approach, se- 
cretly or openly, the better to see or to hear. 26 When he 
greets her in God's name, 27 when he plies her with questions, 
— who is she, and why does she sing \ 28 — he is sometimes 
rebuked for his impertinence, but is more often courteously 

21 The central figure is regularly a woman, usually a shepherdess 
(II. 15, in. 23; Perrenelle, Ermenjon, touse, pucele, n. 1, 13, 10, I. 29) 
but frequently dame, damoiselle, etc. (i. 44, 70). There may be two or 
three women (i. 48, 21), or a woman and her husband or lover (i. 35, 
63), or a pastor or chevalier by substitution (n. 54, I. 61). — In religious 
adaptations appear Mary or the Cross (Bartsch, p. xiii, Rom. vill. 
p. 336 ) , the latter being the only instance known to me of an inanimate 
object as central figure. Symbolic figures (le deu d'amor, etc., i. 30b, 
ii. 2) and birds, notably the rosignolet (i. 27, etc.), appear. 

22 ii. 18; sanz compaignon, etc. (n. 17, 28). 

23 The kind of tree is usually specified; cf. desoz un pin, etc. (i. 29, 
ii. 28, and cf. Pillet, pp. 97, 101). But cf. soz la raime, soz une arbroie, 
etc. (ii. 65, I. 37). The place is en un pre, an un destor, pres d'un 
voie (i. 21, 41, n. 22, 23). Occasionally the person met is wandering: 
aloit joie menant (n. 61). 

24 The person met usually sings. The song often constitutes the 
recurring burden (n. 56: Robin tureleure Robinet) , sometimes prefixed 
(i. 45). In I. 27 the burden, saderala don, etc., is suggested by the 
nightingale's song, though it is not certainly intended to represent it. 
The girl weeps or guards her flock (n. 14). She never "comes riding." 
(The fanciful maiden of I. 28, who chevauchoit une mule, is not the 
heroine of a chanson d'aventure; the deu d'amors in I. 30b rides). 

25 ii. 50, 31, 45. The description, usually very brief, but sometimes 
more elaborate, presents the traditional euz vairs, cler vis, etc.; the 
poet never saw a fairer (n. 15) and is rejoiced at her beauty (i. 50; 
so Gautier de Coincy, Bartsch, p. xiii; sadness follows the sight of the 
Cross, Rom. vin. p. 336). 

28 Secretly, I. 65; openly, i. 49. Vois la veoir, m. 51, cf. ii. 63; por 
oir sa dolor, i. 61. Very often the chevalier seats himself near the 
pastore, II. 18. 

37 ii. 40, I. 68. 

28 II. 59, 7. 



INTRODUCTION V 

received. 29 In this manner lie leads up to the action that he 
has chosen to present. 30 

The type of action presented furnishes the basis for dis- 
tinction between the two main kinds of chanson d'aventure, — 
the chansons dramatiques and the pastourelles. 31 The themes 

29 Cf. fuies de ci, ni. 13. (When she would flee, she is forcibly- 
detained, II. 15). — Deux grant joie vos dont, I. 46, etc. 

80 Many settings, especially those of less primitive type, omit one or 
more of the features just reviewed; often they retain no echo of the 
early theme of earth's renouveau: 

L'autrier une pastorele 
trovai seant en un pre (in. 17), 
or, 

L'autrier quant me chevalchoie 

tout droit d'Arraz a Doai 

une pastoure trovoie (in. 32). 

II. 67 opens with the song of a pucelete, followed abruptly by, Vers la 
touse m'avance; cf. in. 51: 

L'autrier pastoure seoit 
lone un buisson. 



Quant je l'oi gaimenter 
vois la veoir. 



Gf. also ii. 3, 57; and the ballade of Guillebin de Lannoy (scec. xv. beg.), 
Bom. xxxrx. p. 357: L'autrier une dame entendy. 

^The term chanson dramatique (used by Jeanroy, Origines, and 
Chambers, Med. Lyric) covers the same subdivision of chansons d'aven^ 
ture as Paris's phrase, chanson a personnages (cf. Paris, Origines, 
I. p. 681). Neither term is wholly satisfactory, inasmuch as the pas- 
tourelle may be properly described as a " dramatic lyric," or a song 
in which the action of personnages is reported. The name chanson 
dramatique has, however, become firmly associated with the definite type 
in question; it seems the wiser course to adopt it, reserving chanson 
& personnages to denote the whole class of objective chansons, including 
chanson d'aventure (chanson dramatique and pastourelle) , aube, chan- 
son d'histoire, etc. (So Aubry, Trouveres et Troubadours, p. 34.) It 
is unwise to use chanson de mal mariee as synonymous with chanson 
dramatique-T-cf. Padelford, XVI. Cent. Lyrics, p. xxxvi — since the song 
of the mal marine furnishes the theme for but one type of chanson 
dramatique, and since it sometimes exists quite independent of the 



10 THE CHANSON d'aVENTUKE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

that characterize the former class betray a closer connection 
with popular poetry than does the pastourelle theme. 
Either a woman's monologue forms the kernel of the chanson 
dramatique 32 or a dialogue or scene in which the woman's 
part is usually dominant, 33 or — in a small group standing 
somewhat nearer than the ordinary chanson d'aventure to 
the primitive chanson de mai — the song of the nightingale 
in praise of springtime and love. 34 In the chanson dra- 
matique, moreover, the poet's role has not been so far ex- 
tended that it is essential ; it is that of silent witness, casual 
questioner, or officious counsellor, 35 but never that of chief 
actor. 

The variety of chanson dramatique in which the poet over- 
hears the lament of a young girl repeats a very primitive 
theme of French lyric poetry. 36 The form in which the 
woman longing for love makes her plaint: 

amie sui senz ami, 

suggested by a few early chansons dramatiques and a number 
of refrains and later chansons, 37 is much less frequent than 
that in which the forsaken maiden laments : 



framework of the chanson dramatique. — Chanson dramatique is here 
taken to include all chansons d'aventure in which the poet is primarily 
only observer and narrator, — i. e., all that are concerned with love- 
laments, love-dialogues, rustic scenes, etc.; the term pastourelle is 
limited to the " classic type " in which the poet plays the wooer ; cf . 
Paris, Origines, I. pp. 730, 734 ff.; Pillet, pp. 122 ff. 

32 1. 51. 

33 1. 45, II. 53, 112. 

34 1. 27, 30 a, 66; cf. i. 29, 30 b, 52. 

35 1. 42, II. 54, I. 43, 61. 

36 Pastorelle (in. 38), dame (i. 40, 43), etc. Monologues of happy 
love are not found among the chansons d'aventure; but cf. a suggestion 
of the theme of successful love, in. 33, 37, n. 115. 

37 1. 40, ii. 24. Cf. Jeanroy, Origines, pp. 182 ff. In the fifteenth 
century chansons the girl's demand is more definite than in the earlier 
pieces; cf. S'ils ne me marient, Us s'en repentiront, and Ma mere, 
je veux Robin, etc. (ibid., p. 185). 



INTRODUCTION 11 

dieus, j'ai perdu mon amiet. 38 

Sometimes the deserted girl expresses grief and jealousy be- 
cause her wooer, who has vowed loyalty, has abandoned her ; 
sometimes she frankly alludes to her betrayal. 39 !Now and 
then she casts reproach upon the false lover: 

or mais en soit pais 
il est mauvais. 40 

Often she allows the chevalier to console her. 41 Occasionally 
the lover himself tardily appears, with the result that the 
lament receives a happy ending. 42 

The most common form of chanson dramatique centers 
about the song of the femme mal mariee, who protests, in 
the season sacred to love, against her loveless union with a 
vilain. 43 The mutinous spirit of her lament has in it some- 
thing of the naivete of folk-song; the immorality of her 
rebellious outcry: 

honis soit maris ki dure plus d'une mois ! 44 

is not conscious and deliberate. Though the poets look upon 
the mismated woman with a slightly ironic smile, 45 they 
do not compose their chansons de mal mariee as satires, 

3S i. 43. 

39 1. 43, II. 7. 

40 in. 38; cf. in. 6 (11. 44-45), 19 (11. 22-24). 

41 in. 19. Beginning as a maiden's lament, the poem is thus con- 
verted into a pastourelle by the intrusion of the poet-wooer; cf. il. 7, 67. 

42 ii. 112; cf. i. 33, 34 (by the lover's entry rendered transitional to 
the love-scenes ) . 

43 The femme is usually a dame (i. 42), but at times a pastourelle (n. 
27) or merely a belle et jouene (i. 54). Though she is obviously not a 
noble dame of the chevalier's class (witness his disrespectful treatment 
of her) she feels herself superior to the vilain (I. 38, 42) and worthy 
of an ami gent (i. 39). 

44 II. 27. 

45 1. 36, 47. (Cf. I. 43, lament of a forsaken girl, 11. 45-46.) 



12 THE CHANSON d'aVENTUKE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

serious or comic, directed either against the dissatisfied wives 
or against marriage as an institution. 46 

Five types of chanson de mal mariee are distinguished by 
Paris : 47 the poet listens to ( 1 ) the woman's uninterrupted 
lament, (2) her dispute with her husband, (3) her interview 
with her lover, (4) her interchange of grievances with one 
or more confidantes, (5) her lament, which he interrupts 
with advice or consolation. 48 Among the fifteenth century 
songs appears a variation, the protest of a prospective mal 
mariee, a girl about to be wedded to an unwelcome husband. 49 

The attitude of the woman, in all these types, presents 
certain conventional features. The mariee de novel 50 rebels 
against her husband as a vilain, a jaloux, who spies upon 
her, beats her, does not fulfil her desires ; 51 she thinks with 
regret of her wasted youth and good spirits; 52 she rejects 
his loathed possession of her, for which her parents are 
responsible, 53 and utters defiance: 

. . . vilains, donee 

suix a vous, se poiee mi; 

mais par la virge honoree, 

pues ke me destraigneis ci, 

je ferai novel ami, 

a cui qui voist anuant. 

48 In the fifteenth century songs the spirit of comedy, burlesque, and 
satire is more evident; cf. Parducci, nos. 2, 3, 14, etc. (These songs 
of the mal mariee are often not chansons d'aventure.) 

47 Origines, I. p. 682. 

48 When he offers his love in consolation, the situation is converted 
into that typical of the pastourelle (cf. I. 64; Jeanroy, Origines, p. 92). 

49 Parducci, nos. 1, 7, 11. The genre stands midway between the 
chanson de jeune fille and the chanson de mal marine. 

50 1. 21, 45. 

81 1. 47, 41, 45; Paris, Chansons, nos. 119, 121; Parducci, no. 13. 

52 1. 51, Parducci, no. 13. The unmarried girl prefers care-free 
pleasures to the burdens, restrictions, and economies of the married 
state; nos. 1, 7. 

63 1. 42, 1. 5, I. 64; Paris, Chansons, no. 121.. 



INTRODUCTION 13 

moi et li irons juant; 
si doublerait la folie. 54 

She does not stifle the wish for the husband's death: 

li jalous 
envious 
de cor rous 
morra. 55 

She expresses these rebellious thoughts as frankly to the 
husband 56 as to herself or to her lover ; 57 or she confides 
them to a companion, who is usually a woman older than 
herself, more extreme in her hatred of the mari salvage, and 
more expert in outwitting him. 58 In one instance 59 three 60 
mariees de novel are assembled, gaily garlanded, en un pre 
Ions un destour; the prying poet hears the youngest singing 
in misguided innocence : 

je servirai mon mari 
lealment en leu d'ami, 

whereupon the eldest in anger rebukes her, would even strike 
her, and cries: 

je ferai novel ami 

an despit de mon mari, 

and la moienne sings : 

54 1. 45. With ferai novel ami, cf. I. 21, 36, 39; also I. 35, 1. 11, 
I. 48, 1. 20; etc. 

55 1. 51. Cf. i. 38, 1. 71; Parducci, no. 4, cf. no. 7; also the fragment 
from an English MS., Anglia, xxx. p. 174. 

56 1. 35. 57 1. 38. 

58 1. 67, 39. M i. 21. 

60 Cf. the troys dames in a late song suggestive of the chanson de mal 
mariee, and the troys jeunes damoiselles in a late echo of the pastou- 
relles: Paris, Chansons, nos. 88, 21. The usual number is two; cf. I. 36, 
47, 48; Parducci, no. 2. 



14 THE CHANSON d'aVENTUKE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

s'on trovast leal ami 
j a n'eusse pris mari. 

The place of the lamenting fille or mal mariee is taken 
in modified forms bj the lover 61 or the husband, the mal 
marie. 02 In such cases the poet, though he may be mere 
reporter, usually offers thoroughly conventional advice. 63 

Less commonly the author of the chanson dramatique 
overhears not a lament, but a dialogue between two lovers. 64 
In such cases the ami is usually a secondary figure, taking 
a comparatively inconspicuous part, 65 or by a belated en- 
trance transforming into an amorous dialogue what bids fair 
to be a maiden's monologue or a chanson de mal mariee, or 
perhaps even a pastourelle. In the so-called pastourelles 
objectives 66 — which may be classed as chansons dramatiques 
inasmuch as the poet does not play the wooer — the poet 
observes scenes of rustic merrymaking or discord. In these 
scenes traces of the predominance of the woman's part are 
still discernible. 67 



61 A chevalier, lamenting estrangement from his dame caused by li 
culvert jangleor (i. 61), or a pastor, bewailing the inconstancy of his 
shepherdess (n. 54), or the stern interference of her mother (in. 2). 
Sadness caused by the lady's death appears only in the ballade of 
Charles d'Orl£ans, I. p. 82. In III. 33 happy Robin advises the sad poet. 

62 Parducci, no. 10 ; cf. no. 3. 

63 in. 16, I. 61. 

64 Usually shepherdess and shepherd; sometimes damoisele and cheva- 
lier (I. 63). 

65 III. 37, etc., in which the girl is the first to be introduced and 
described. Cf. the ballade, scec. xv. beg. (Bom. xxxix. p. 357), which 
consists wholly in the reproaches of a dame to her compaignon, a 
silent auditor. The debat evenly divided between two interlocutors 
(cf. Jeanroy, Origines, pp. 13 ff., 50 ff.) does not appear among the 
chansons d'aventure. (n. 47 lacks the customary debut.) 

68 Paris, Origines, I. pp. 733 f. ; Pillet, 125. The term is variously 
applied; usually to a scene enacted by a group of shepherds, but 
sometimes to any chanson dramatique with shepherd actors; cf. Jean- 
roy's list, Origines, p. 42. 

67 ii. 57, in. 29, etc. 



INTRODUCTION 1 5 

The small and somewhat isolated group of chansons dra- 
matiques in which the enraptured poet listens to the spring- 
song of nightingale or lark bears recognizable impress, as has 
been said, of its popular origin. But the naive celebration 
of springtime and of love usually gives place to the formulas 
of the chanson courtoise; the nightingale is wroth that he 
has been overheard by a vilain, he woos a fairy-like maiden 
in the terms of a courtier, he advises the poet to be loyal in 
love, and inveighs against trahitour et mesdisant.® 8 Only 
the burden that accompanies the song of the aristocratic 
nightingale retains something of the popular note: 

saderala don ! 

tant fet bon 

dormir lez le buissonet. 69 

The pastourelle is the most strictly denned and the most 
widely represented form of chanson d'aventure. In it the 
aristocratic character of the convention is most obvious. 
The poet invariably chooses for himself a principal part; 
as a courtly chevalier 70 he plays the wooer to a shepherdess. 71 
He dwells with evident zest upon the gulf between his world 
and hers. Je suis fits a chastelain, he boasts to the girl whom 
he addresses as yastorelle, and who responds with biaz dous 
sire or chivaliers ; 72 he alludes to her poor garments ; 73 he 
disparages her faithful Robin: 

queus est amors d'un bregier 
qui ne set fors que mengier 

68 1. 27, 29, 52, 66. "i. 27. 

70 In II. 59 the narrator, addressed as sire, speaks of himself as li 
clers. 

71 A dame or damoiselle is treated as is the heroine of the ordinary 
pastourelle in certain songs (i. 44, 46, 50, 52; dame mal marine, I. 64, 
69) described by Jeanroy (Origines, p. 92) as chansons i 
that have adopted the commonplaces of the pastourelle. 

72 II. 25. 73 ni. 43. 



16 THE CHANSON d'aVENTUKE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

et garder pors et aigniaus? 

bele, laissies ses aviaus, 

si vos tenes as damoisiaus. 74 

He urges his suit only as the amusement of an idle hour, and 
when interrupted or denied, can depart without chagrin, 
confiding to the reader, like Thibaut de Navarre, n'oi cure 
de tel gent! 7S 

His narrative proceeds like that of a hundred other wooers. 
After he has listened to the song of the shepherdess 76 he 
abruptly offers his love. 77 When persuasion proves neces- 
sary, he offers gifts (robes et biax joiaus assez, or boursete 78 ), 
he promises high station (dame seras d'un chastel 79 ), 
he flatters her, 80 abuses her shepherd lover, 81 pleads for 
pity, 82 assures her — falsely enough, as the event proves — 
of his sincerity. 83 The girl, even if she has greeted him 
courteously, often makes a show of fear or anger at his pro- 
posal, and asks him why he intrudes. 84 She offers against 
him an array of arguments: 

certes fole seroie 

se je Eobin laissoie 

por vos ke me lairies demain. 85 

She cares for Eobin only, and not a whit for him ; 86 there- 
fore he wastes his words. 87 She lays on him the command, 
ne moi gabaz 88 or, 

"in. 18. ^m. 4. 

76 The woman's lament is given marked prominence in certain pas- 
tourelles; cf. II. 7, 67. 

77 ii. 20, 34 (je vostre amin serai). 

78 ii. 18, 71. 79 ni. 1. 

80 ii. 9. 81 m. 18, 19. 

82 ii. 38 (mereit vos pri, ou je morrai). 

83 in. 18. 

84 ii. 3, 18 (Sire, que querez vos ca?) 

85 II. 16; cf. ii. 45, in. 1. 

86 ii. 17 (je n'ai de vostre amor cure). 

87 ni. 14 (vostre parole gastez). 88 n. 13. 



INTRODUCTION 1 7 

teneis vostre voie 

aillors quereis aventure, 89 



and declares: 



. . . j'aim miex povre deserte 
sous la foille od mon ami 
que dame en chambre coverte; 
si n'ait on cure de mi. 90 

Or, more humbly, she urges that she is but a poor maiden, 
who would do no honour to such a gentleman as he, 91 that 
she is too young, and in danger of a mother's beating should 
she accept a lover; 92 if Eobin should find her with the new- 
comer, she would certainly be shamed. 93 But in spite of 
all this protest, the girl usually yields, often quite willingly, 94 
sometimes only when forced to do so. 95 She accepts her 
defeat with shame soon banished, or even with satisfac- 
tion ; 96 she almost never demands amends. 97 In a minority 
of pastourelles her resistance is both sincere and effective; 
in one she calls on the mother of God to aid her: 

' ce ne vaut deus noiz/ 
fet ele, ' ancois m'ocirroiz.' 
et dist ' douce mere de, 
gardez moi ma chastee.' 98 

88 II. 16; cf. ales vostre voie, in. 12, n. 50. 

90 ill. 1. 91 n. 3; cf. II. 13. 

92 II. 34. 93 n. 14. 

91 II. 38. 

95 n. 62. Cf. ii. 1, ni. 4. The denouement is often reported with 
explicitness. In I. 52 (varying also in setting from the norm) the 
action is checked, after the customary offer and an encouraging re- 
sponse, by a prolonged description of the girl; the closing strophe is 
in the manner of courtly song (chanconete, tu iras, etc.). In n. 63 
the girl turns away and joins her lover as soon as she sees the poet 
dismount and approach her. 

96 II. 6, I. 44; cf. II. 62. 

97 ii. 6 (aves me vos guileef . . . non ferai, ainz m'avrois espousee) . 

98 hi. 25; cf. Jeanroy, Origines, p. 21, n. 2: "II n'y a un vrai senti- 

2 



18 THE CHANSON d' A VENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

The wooer in this instance, though angered, shows her some 
respect ; too often he is ready to ride away, taking his success 
or failure, her delight or grief, as a light jest." 

In an infrequent form, standing much nearer to the courtly 
lyric than to the purely objective chanson d'aventure, the 
poet offers his own love lament as a substitute for the usual 
amorous adventure. 100 The sole distinction, in fact, from 
the chanson d 'amour lies in the fact that the writer repre- 
sents his soliloquy as occurring at a definite moment, under 
definite circumstances, as the outcome of an actual encounter 
or of a particular mood of his own: 

L'autrier au douz mois d'avril, main me levai: 
Pensis a mes amours jouer m'en alai, 

Dont trop m'esmai, 

Quar ne sai 
Se ja joie en arai. 101 

The examples are far from primitive, being found among 
the motets, or among the ballades of Charles d'Orleans and 
his associates, who have embellished their conventional 
reveries with prefaces echoing those of the older lyrics of 
adventure. 

The secular chanson d'aventure was readily, if not very 
frequently, adapted by the clerks to pious purposes. 102 

ment de pudeur feminine que dans une seule piece (ni. 25), ou l'auteur 
aura sans doute cherche' le piquant de la nouveauteV' 
"ii. 6, 62, in. 4. 

100 This variation can be observed in the making as the poet, musing 
over his love-troubles when he first appears, intrudes to question, to 
advise, then to woo; in certain cases he has thrust his own love to the 
fore, by asking or receiving advice of the pastorelle or Robin (n. 66, 92, 
in. 33). 

101 Raynaud, Motets, I. p. 232. Cf. Stimming, Die Motette, p. 86, no. 
14a; Raynaud, Motets, n. p. 51 (Bartsch, II. 98), p. 53 (Bartsch, ii. 
107) ; Charles d'Orleans, I. p. 31, ii. pp. 122, 214. 

102 On religious adaptations of secular forms in France, cf . Morf, 
Herrig's Archiv, cxi. pp. 122 ff.; Bartsch, Zs. f. rom. phil. vni. pp. 



INTBODTTCTION- 19 

Early in the thirteenth century, 103 Gautier de Coincy skil- 
fully turns the pastourelle formula to account in indignantly 
rebuking those erring clerks who devote themselves to ces 
vies pastoureles, and desert Marie for Marot: 

Hui matin a l'ajornee 
tote m'ambleure 



570 ff . ; P. Meyer, Bom. xvii. pp. 429 ff. ; Jeanroy, Bom. xvhi. pp. 477 ff., 
and Origines, Textes ix-xiv; Jarnstrom, Bee. de Chansons Pieuses, pp. 
13-16. 

103 A fragment of a religious poem dating from the first quarter of 
the twelfth eentuiy (Bartsch, Chrest. p. 62, following Paris, Jb. f. rom. 
u. engl. Lit. vi. p. 362) or the close of the eleventh (P. Meyer, Bee. 
d'Anc. Textes, p. 206) presents the lament of a maiden (the Church) 
for her lost lover (Christ). The numbers in parentheses refer to 
Bartsch. 

Quant li solleiz converset en leon 

en icel tens qu'es ortus pliadon, 

per unc matin, (I. 64.) 

Une pulcellet odit molt gent plorer (pucelete, I. 52, plorer, I. 61.) 

et son ami dolcement regreter, (i. 72, u. 91, n. 112.) 

et si Hi dis: (i. 64, 1. 8; III. 50, 1. 21.) 

Gentilz pucellet, molt t'ai odit plorer 

et turn ami dolcement regreter, 

et chi est illi? (Hi. 49, 1. 16; I. 64, 1. 9.) 

La virget fud de bon entendement, (in. 43, 11. 49-50; n. 68, 1. 9.) 

si respondit molt avenablement (in. 25, 11. 37-38; in. 50, 11. 23-24.) 

de son ami: 

' Li miens amis il est de tel paraget,' etc. 

The analogy with the chansons d'aventure common in the later twelfth 
century is patent. Possibly the peculiar manner in which the author 
develops the situation furnished by the Song of Songs (cf. Paris, I. c, 
pp. 362-363) is influenced by his knowledge of the amorous adventure- 
lyrics just entering upon their heritage in the South of France. The 
pedantic designation of Spring marks him as a clerk conversant with 
the traditions that later take written shape in the Carmina Burana; 
cf. no. 31 (ed. Schmeller, edit. 2, 1883), p. 115, 11. 3-4 (calcat Phoebus 
ungula, dum in taurum flectitur) , also nos. 44, p. 134, 11. 1-2; 54, p. 
147, 1. 1; 98, p. 177, 11. 6-8; etc. This poem is also possibly an early 
example of the tradition represented in no. 62, p. 153, a modified Latin 
chanson d'aventure which Pillet (p. 102) considers a pious parody, 
representing the Church by the puella, the clergy by the pastores, etc. 



20 THE CHANSON D"AVENTUE,E IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

chevauchai par une pree 
par bone aventure. 
une nourete ai trouvee 
gente de faitnre: 

adonc fis vers dusqu'a sis 
de la fleur de paradis. 104 

Gautier, though alluding to this encounter as if it were an 
actual occurrence, avoids the recital of an actual amorous 
dialogue with Mary, but the author of a devout pastou- 
relle, 105 similar to those recommended, as we are told, to 
Saint Louis' young squire, is less discreet ; finding the Virgin 
in a meadow, he describes her in well-worn phrases of secular 
poetry : 

cler out le vis et le cors gent divino moderamine, 

plus que cristal sont blanc si dent recto loquentur ordine ; 

he offers his devotion like any worldly lover. This the 
gracious Maiden-mother accepts, promising to intercede with 
her Son for her devoted servant. This poem is demon- 
strably the re-working of an amorous pastourelle. 106 The 

10 * Bartsch, p. xiii. 

105 Zs. f. rom. phil. vin. p. 573; extract printed by Jeanroy, Origines, 
p. 489 (Texte xiv). 

106 An amorous pastourelle, written in Anglo-Norman and Latin in the 
thirteenth century (ed. Sachs, Herrig's Archiv, xxi. p. 263, and P. Meyer, 
Bom. iv. p. 380), agrees, in part strophe for strophe and word for word, 
with this religious Franco-Latin pastourelle; the Anglo-Norman poem 
cannot be the original since it is much more abbreviated than the reli- 
gious version. The two therefore represent a common amorous original, 
presumably composed in France. Jarnstrom is not altogether correct in 
asserting (Rec. de Chansons Pieuses, p. 15, n. 1): "Si on la [the 
religious pastourelle] compare avec la pastourelle profane, egalement 
frangaise-latine, . . on verra que le poete pieux a tres servilement 
parodie" la piece profane." (Pillet pointed out before Jarnstrom the 
existence of some verbal agreement, p. 122). Cf. the following lines 



INTRODUCTION 21 

few fourteenth century examples are less faithful to their 
amorous models, less realistic and dramatic. Froissart over- 
hears some shepherds in a formal " argument " relating to 
the day of St. John the Baptist; 107 an unknown clerk who 
begins his poem thus: 

En mon deduit a moys de may 
Pensant aloy juxt' une boscage 
Les floures divers devisay 
Oseux chauntheantz a lour estage, 

tells of encountering une crois paynte de bele ymage which 
inspires him to devout prayer to Mary and her Son. 108 None 
of the religious adventure-songs completely abandons the 
device of an actual encounter; there is no religious reverie 
to correspond to the few love-soliloquies in chanson d'aventure 
form. 

French clerks seem not to have used the popular form to 
embody purely didactic themes, 109 but such poets as Froissart 
and Deschamps occasionally adopted the framework for their 
poesies de cir Constance. 110 Taken as a whole, the adaptation 

in the Anglo-Norman poem with those of the French one quoted in the 
text: 

Cler ot le vis et [le] cor[s] gent nature moderamine, 

Plus de cristal sunt blancs se[s] dens justo locantur ordine. 

107 Froissart, ed. Scheler, Poesies, n. p. 346, Pastourelle xvirr. 

108 Extract printed by P. Meyer, Bom. vin. pp. 335 f. 

109 Didacticism marks such lines in the religious pastourelle (cf. 
preceding note) as, Le vie passe come fait le umbrage. The few in* 
structive chansons d'aventure that may be noted (cf. Deschamps, in. 
p. 22 — On obtient tout avec de V argent — and the note following) are 
satiric rather than moral. 

110 Cf . Jeanroy, Origines, p. 30 and note, and Chansons, p. 358 ; Frois- 
sart's pastourelles (ed. Scheler, Po4sies, n) ; Deschamps, in. pp. 22, 47, 
62, 93, v. pp. 79, 122, yii. p. 133, x. p. lxxvii, etc.; Leroux de Lincy, 
Bee. de Chants Historiques Fr. H. p. 80, etc. 



22 THE CHANSON d'aVENTUEE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

of this particular convention, whether religious, moral, or 
occasional, is remarkably restricted. 111 

The French lyrics of adventure, almost without exception, 
tell of actual encounters. Even when they concern a sym- 
bolic character, — le deu d'amors, a nightingale that offers 
sage advice, the Virgin, or the holy Cross, — the recitals are 
realistic and matter-of-fact; there is no suggestion that the 
adventure is visionary. 112 The trouvere or jongleur as a 
rule consistently maintains the pretense of the opening lines. 
The cases are comparatively rare in which he keeps unobtru- 
sively to his shadowy background; 113 even when he limits 
his activity to that of a narrator, he often reminds us of his 
presence by referring to his secluded point of vantage, or 
by recording his departure. 114 In a word, the chansons 
d'aventure in Trance maintain, through all modification, 
their dramatic quality. 



C. Limits op the Present Discussion 

The Trench lyrics of adventure must have been known in 
England while they were still current in France; this is 
proved by the several English derivatives that were written 
down as early as about 1300. The highest popularity of 

111 Cf. Jarnstrom, Rec. de Chansons Pieuses, p. 16. 

112 With the exception of the adventure — very realistic, nevertheless 
— which in the stereotyped dSout contains the words en eel lieu je m'en 
dormi (i. 52). The slumber in I. 27 is incidental, being ended before 
the adventure proper begins. 

113 1. 51. 

114 1. 36, II. 112. Details that figure in the preliminary setting 
reappear, — e. g., the cheval, — but occasionally with some inconsistency 
(cf. I. 73, 11. 3 and 20) ; the setting in one or two cases (i. 61, 73) 
is referred to at the close, though the whole prelude is never repeated. 
In n. 59, 68, the poet who begins his narrative in the first person ends 
by speaking of himself in the third; so in Paris, Chansons, no. 29, and 
perhaps in n. 65. 



INTRODUCTION" 23 

the English chanson d'aventure comes, however, in the late 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when the vogue of the 
French adventure-song is long since past. The following 
discussion of the English examples will be concerned with 
the period that begins about 1300 and terminates in the mid- 
sixteenth century with the appearance of Tottel's Miscellany 
and the accession of Elizabeth. 115 Late Tudor songs, though 
perhaps not strictly a part of Middle English poetry, will 
be included, inasmuch as they are echoes caught up by 
musicians from traditions of long standing. The many bal- 
lads that have adopted the form of the chanson d'aventure 
will be represented by the few examples that date definitely 
before 1550, or that present plainly traditional features. 
The large number of chansons d'aventure that occur among 
Elizabethan music-books, and among the later collections of 
street-ballads and semi-popular songs, fall outside the scope 
of the present consideration, since they show no signifi- 
cant development of the convention, but only illustrate its 
persistence. 

The discussion will, as a matter of course, include Scottish 
chansons d'aventure, the earliest of which appear in the later 
years of the fifteenth century. 116 It will comprehend not 
only amorous lyrics, but also adaptations of religious, didac- 
tic, and miscellaneous character; among the miscellaneous 
adventure-lyrics will be included those of historical, satiric, 
occasional, and humorous content. The list of chansons 
d'aventure treated will not include adventure-poems (if they 
may be so called) that preserve merely the element of the 
poet's presence, as does the carol, " I saw a swete semly 

115 Definite dating of popular and semi-popular poems is of course an 
impossibility. The date of the MS. or MSS. involved is often of value 
only in furnishing a terminus ad quern. 

116 Occasionally a poem in Scotch dialect is merely a variant of a 
poem already current in England; cf. D2b, 13 b. (For explanation of 
these citations, cf. Ch. n. n. 1.) 



24 THE CHANSON HAVENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

syght; " 117 it will exclude poems in which a vision element 
predominates, such as Mary's lament, Quia Amove Lan- 
gueo, xx% and poems which are quite devoid of a real adventure 
element, though influenced in phrasing by adventure-songs, 
such as " My self walkyng all allone." 119 

The first of the two following chapters will be devoted to 
the conventional form, the second to the themes. In each 
an attempt will be made to demonstrate the general adher- 
ence of the English convention to its foreign models, and 
at the same time to point out certain peculiarly English 
tendencies which manifest themselves in tone and spirit 
rather than in form. 

117 Rickert, Carols, p. 59. 

™ Cf. below, Ch. n. n. 78; Ch. ra. § B, n. 14. 

119 Bel. Ant. i. p. 26. 



II 

THE CONVENTIONAL FOEM 

The English composers of chansons d'aventure are faithful 
in the main to the pattern set them by their French prede- 
cessors; though they introduce certain important alterations 
into the narrative, yet they repeat monotonously phrases 
caught from trouvere song. 

The preliminaries to the adventure are, as in France, the 
designation of day, hour, and season, the appearance of the 
solitary poet " wandering by the way," the announcement of 
his mood and his motive for being abroad, and the tale of 
his unexpected encounter with some frequenter of field or 
forest. 1 

The earliest and most persistent phrase used to designate 
the day is " this enders day," or " this other day," 2 a direct 
translation of the familiar Vautrier or Vautre jour. Sub- 
stitutes, occurring usually in the later poems, are " on a day," 
" in a morning," " once," and " of late " or " not long ago." 3 
As in France, the selection of a definite week-day or of a 
particular feast-day 4 is the result of effort to vary a trite 

1 For French parallels to details presented in this chapter cf . above, 
Ch. I. § B and notes. Citations of English texts by letter and number 
refer to the four registers in Appendix B: A (Amorous), R (Relig- 
ious), D (Didactic), M (Miscellaneous). 

2 A 6, 36, 37 (c. 1303), 38, 39; R 6, 7, 13 (c. 1310), 18, 25 (c. 1310) ; 
D 2, 22. (Cf. the modification "this other year," in pieces manifestly 
influenced by the chanson d'aventure tradition; John the Reeve, Percy 
Folio MS. II. p. 557, and The Bludy Serk, Henryson, Scot. Text Soc. 
in. p. 96. 

3 A 4, 11; D 7, 30; cf. D 24: A 5, 12, 22, 28, 29, 41, 44, and often: A 2, 
24: A 8, 9, 15, 31, 33; R 14, 24; D 28; M 8. 

* Monday, A 20, M 2 a (sac. xrv) ; Wednesday, A 24, M 2 a, 1. 76, in- 

25 



26 THE CHANSON d'aVENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

formula. Brief descriptions of the day, thoroughly conven- 
tional, mark a few of the later pieces. 5 

When precisely timed, the adventure regularly occurs 
near dawn, or, less definitely, in the morning hours. 6 
Variations — the hours of dark before the dawn, 7 noon-tide, 8 
evening, and night 9 — occur in comparatively late examples, 
the choice being sometimes apparently capricious, sometimes 
determined by the substance, as when the poet chooses noon- 
tide of a summer's day to symbolize the hot madness of 
youth. 10 The later adaptations are sometimes burdened 
with over-sophisticated phrasing, such as Lydgate's " Late 
whane Aurora of Tytane toke Leve." n 

Spring is the favourite season of the English wayfarers, 

consistently with 1.1. ("On Wednesday" is conventional, especially in 
Scotland, it would seem : cf . besides A 24 and M 2 a, Love Gregory, 
Scotch version, 1. 1, Percy Soc. xvn. p. 60, Freiris of Berwik, 1. 61, 
Dunbar, Scot. Text Soc. II. p. 287 ; " Ash Wednesday," Dunbar, I. c, 
p. 160, is influenced by the anti-Lenten theme; non-Scottish use in 
Otuel, 1. 125, ed. E. E. T. S. Extra Ser. xxxix) ; Sunday, R 21 (c. 1370), 
to fit the pious theme. — Black Monday, A 20; Midsummer Eve, A 45; 
Tuleday, etc., D 1, M 10; " bifore be Ascenciun," R 21 (c. 1370). 
5 A 28, 29; R 23; D 23, 30; M 16. 

6 Dawn, A 10, 28, 35, 45 ; R 20, 23, 27 ; D 28, 34, 37 ; before the day, 
etc., A 7, 29 b, c; M 13, 20; in a morning, etc., A 4, 11, 12, 44; D 2, 
7, 22, 28, etc. For early cf. A 10, 29 b; also probably A 45, end, where 
" airly " is better interpreted as referring to the hour than to the 
period of Dunbar's life (cf. Dunbar, Scot. Text Soc. I. p. lxxxvii) or to 
a date not long past (Schipper, William Dunbar, p. 144). 

7 A 45, R 14. 
8 D 18, 24. 

9 " This enders night" (A 23, 40; R 8; M 21) is probably an independ- 
ent English modification of " this enders day," rather than an imitation 
of the infrequent autre nuit, especially as in all cases but A 40 it 
seems to be an intentional variation. The phrase occurs in the settings 
of the fifteenth century " spiritual lullabies," which " certainly savour 
of the French," though no French poems of the type are known (cf. 
Padelford, Cambr. Hist, of Engl. Lit. II. p. 433.) — Evening, etc., A 29 d, 
R 21 (c. 1370), D 32, M 4. 

10 D 24. 

11 D 28. Cf. R 20, 23, 27; D 32, 34, 37; M 23. 



THE CONVENTIONAL FOEM 27 

and May their chosen month ; 12 Summer now and then shares 
their favour. 13 Yet the English poets do not dwell, as one 
might expect, on the freshness and beauty of reviving Nature. 
Unlike the trouveres who, formalists though they be, do not 
fail to note la prime florete blanchoier aval ces pres, 1 * the 
English adventurers, early as well as late, inaugurate their 
recitals with terse, business-like phrases : 

Prom petres bourh in o morewenyng 
as y me wende omy pley^yng 
on mi folie y ]?ohte, 15 



As I stod on a day me self under a tre 
I met .... 16 

The explanation probably lies partly in the fact that these 
earliest poets are borrowing from contemporary Erenelh 
poems, that is, from late and ultra-conventional chansons 
with preludes of the most condensed and lifeless type. Other 
writers, especially in post-Chaucerian days, at once echo the 
foreign phrases and improve upon them in sophisticated 
fashion : 

In may whan euery herte is lyjt 
And flowrys frosschely sprede and sprynge 
And Phebws with his bemys bry^te 
Was in J?e Bole so cler schynynge. 17 



12 Spring is designated by phrases: verno tempore (A 43), "in ye 
begynnyng off thys yere," etc. (A 25, D 31). "Spring," like French 
printemps, does not occur. May, A 7, 11, 21, 22, 26, 28, 29, 34, 35; 
E 12, 20; D 7, 23; M 13, 18, 20. April, E 27 (scec. xvi) ; February, 
near March, A 32 (scec. xv). 

13 A 2, 24; E 21, 22; D 3, 24, 25; M 14, 24. 
14 Bartsch, II. 24. 

M E 17 (c. 1310). 
16 A 4 (scec. xiv, first half). 

"A 22 (c. 1400). The astrological phraseology, which has an iso- 
lated French parallel (cf. Bartsch, Chrest. p. 62), is here probably 



-58 THE CHANSON D AVENTUBE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

Only an occasional burden, suggestive of folk-song, sounds 
a spontaneous note of vernal joy: 

Mery hyt ys in may mornyng 
Mery wayys ffor to gonne. 18 

The fresh and gay months are the traditional season even 
for the gloomiest adventures, — encounters with lovers " ver- 
ray seyk, ful pale of hewe " or with sadly repentant wights. 19 
Sometimes, however, the darker seasons furnish the back- 
ground, as in France, for events by no means unhappy; the 
poet is seeking variety or trying to meet the exigencies of 
rhyme. 20 In other cases, winter is chosen apparently in a 
conscious effort to make season and mood conform; Lydgate 
chooses December for his tale of " nittyng fortune," and 
Kennedy dates the tardy repentance of an old friar in the 
hoary age of the year, " eftir the halydayis of Yule." 21 

Chaucerian; so also the mythological reference (cf. R 27, D 31). With 
1. 1 cf . A 34, " In May . . . quhen all luvaris reiosit bene, and most 
desyrus of >air pray." 

18 R 2. Cf. A 37 (c. 1303) and A 11 (c. 1500) with burdens redolent 
of Spring: " No[w] spri[nke]s the sprai " and " Colle to me the rysshys 
grene, colle to me "; also M 17, " This day day dawes." In the settings 
proper, the brief descriptions of the seasons (A 1, 2, 22, 24, 34, 35; 
R 17, 27; D 7, 23, 24, 31; M 5, 19, 20, 24) offer conventional references 
to mild and mirthful or lusty May-days or sweet savoured flowers (All, 
28 ; D 7 ) ; or studied phrases like " in ane symmer sessoun quhen men 
wynnis thair hay " and " not far fro marche in the ende of feueryere " 
(A 2, 32; cf. M 4, 5; all late). Some of the Scotch descriptions, 
though elaborate and conventional, have a welcome concreteness and 
freshness, cf. A 35. 

19 A 11, D 7, etc. Such a literary artist as Charles d'Orleans perhaps 
realizes the value of le joyeux temps as a foil to his sadness (cf. A 26) ; 
but the psychology of the mediaeval clerk is not so subtle. It is safe 
to assert that the average spring-time setting for a lament, amorous, 
religious, or didactic, is merely a formal survival of an earlier mode. 

ao R 15, a bird sits, with " syjkyng sare," on " bowys bare"; so 
perhaps A 1, M 4 (though in M 4, "Full carefully clothed from the 
cold" finds an interesting parallel in Bartsch, in. 1, trovai pastoure 
. . . contre yver ert lien guarnie, a variation on I. 21, 1. 20, hi. 50, 
1. 11). 

21 D 34, 1. 



THE CONVENTIONAL FORM 29 

One of the earliest of the poets — undoubtedly guided by- 
French tradition in the special form he adopts — chooses for 
his devout reverie the time when " shrinked rose and lylie 
flour." 22 If he has made use of some definite French model, 
that model was an adventure-poem presumably not of sombre 
tone, prefaced either by a joyous setting or by one of the 
very rare ones like Quant fuelle cMet et flor fault; 23 if the 
former be true, he has transformed both setting and adven- 
ture; if the latter, he has retained the setting and fitted to 
it an adventure better suited to its tenor and to his own 
taste. Such speculation is idle; quite possibly he had no 
particular model in mind as he wrote, but only the general 
convention. Certainly most of such modifications in the 
English poems are to be regarded as independent inventions 
of serious-minded poets. 

The English poet, like his French precursor, shuns com- 
pany; he observes the tradition for secrecy even when the 
adventure he is to relate lays no such necessity upon him. 24 
Habitually he is idly wandering, unlike the Frenchman who 
goes proudly chevalchant. In fact, considerably fewer than 
a tenth of all the English poets-errant tell us that they ride, 25 
and only one carries the pretense beyond the opening lines: 

I ther stod and hoved styll 
To a tre I teyd my sted. 26 

Three of these few riders are early fourteenth-century 
adventurers, — a fact that suggests that in its beginnings the 
English chanson d'aventure was bidding fair to follow alien 

^R 17 (c. 1310). 

23 Bartsch, II. 17. 

24 "Alone" etc., A 3, 6, 7, 11, 12, 17, 21, 32, 36, 44, 45, 46, and often; 
"withowttin feir," A 12. 

25 A 30 (c. 1310), 35, 37 (c. 1303), 41; R 8, 13 (c. 1310), 15; D 2b, 
14 a, 16 b, 33, 35. 

26 D 35. 



-30 THE CHANSON d'aVENTITRE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

precedent. The later development belies this promise because 
it is dominated not by courtly, amusement-loving trouveres, 
but by grave clerks or by poets in fairly close touch with 
the people. The " riding," far from serving as an actual 
mark of class distinction, is only a meaningless phrase to the 
clerk who ventures the startling assertion, " I gon ryde, walk- 
ynge al miself alone." 27 The English poet as a rule 
" walks," " fares," " comes," " goes," " wanders," or " passes 
by " a quiet place. 28 Sometimes, like the French poet, he 
relies on the bare phrase " I rose " 29 to suggest the early 
morning ramble. At times — especially when he is about to 
relate an episode of quiet nature— he is at repose as the 
story opens, standing under a tree, sitting, or lying, perhaps 
" by a bancke " ; 30 in a final remove from the usual active 
outdoor adventure, he is studiously musing, or kneeling in 
devotion, or unclosing a book. 31 In all this he is independent 
of French custom. Yet, in spite of such radical variations 
in content, the English writer adheres closely to the French- 
man's phrasing; his " ase y me rod," " as y con fare," and 
" wandering as I went " 32 are familiar expressions. Though 
he shows a preference for the as-clause, he often uses in 
later songs the simple preterite, which is the commonest 
form in France, — " vp I arose," " I went alone." 33 In a 
curtailed form, which appears most often in Tudor song- 

27 D 14 a. In D 16 b ("By a fforest as I gan ryde ") the verb should 
be "went," as the rhyme proves. Cf. also A 35 for a contradictory 
"I red." 

25 Cf. in A alone: 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 16, 17, 21, 22, 24, 26, 29, 32, 
33, 36. 

29 A 43; E5;M 20, 23. 

30 Standing, A 3, 4, 31; D 21; M 6; cf. "was present," A 18. Sitting, 
D 11 ("at a sarmoun") ; M 1. Lying, A 7, 38; R 23; D 18; M 13, 18. 

31 D 31; M 21: R 18, 21; D 22: R 14. 

32 Cf. in A alone: 1 to 9, 12, 13, 16, 24, 26, 29, 31, 32, 33, 37, 41; 
similar clauses ("mosti ryden," " ]?er I lay") 18, 30, 38; present 
participle replaces the clause (A 17, 46, etc.) 

33 A 43, 36, and often. 



THE CONVENTIONAL FORM 31 

books, he first indicates his presence by the verb that an- 
nounces the encounter : 

In wyldernes 

there found y besse. 34 

In an extreme instance, closely paralleled in France, he says : 

Hay how the mavys 
on a brere 
she satt and sang 
with notes clere. 
I drew me nere 
to se her chere. 35 

In other late forms he indulges in pedantic elaboration both 
of the expression and of the action itself. 36 

In choosing the scene for his tale the English poet in the 
main follows the Frenchman's lead. He passes by the green- 
wood or forest, 37 or less often, by a meadow, hillside, valley, 
or river's brim. 38 He does not always precisely define the 

34 A 27. The verbs are heard, found, saw, met: A 10, 15, 19, 23, 28, 
29 a, b, 34, 39, 40, 42, etc. With A 15 (scec. xvi), "I hard lately to a 
ladye," ef. L'autrier une dame entendy, Rom. xxxix. p. 357. 

35 A 14. 

36 "I dyde me repare," "I movit me," etc., A 1, 12, 21, 31, 45; R 22; 
D 31; M 16, 23. For elaborate preliminary action, cf. A 35, 45, 46; 
D 24. The ambitious prelude of D 24 may be indirectly influenced by 
alliterative allegories in •which episodes of hunting or deer-stalking 
figure, and in which the poet appears as witness or actor: cf. Pari, of 
Thre Ages, and Somer Soneday (Bel. Ant. II. p. 7). 

37 A 16, R 13; both c. 1310. Cf. A 14, 26, 27, 36, 39, and often; cf. 
" under a tree," A 4, 17, etc. ; " under the leaves," A 36, 45 ; R 1, etc. — 
Preference for the "side" of the forest or meadow (A 2, 35; R 9, 15, 
26; D 2 a, 8, 14 b, 15, 16 a, b, 18, 22 b; M 3, 4, 8, 14) abundantly 
paralleled in France, is encouraged in England by the convenience of 
side to rhyme with ride, tide, and ahide, all frequent in the preliminary 
narrative. The idea of the borderland is conveyed also by the frequent 
use of "by" in "by one foreste " etc.; cf. in A alone: 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 
13, 24, 30, 32, 35, 42, 45. 

38 Meadow, A 2, 4, 12, 24; R 19, 22; D 12; M 5. Hill, R 19; D 10; 



32 THE CHANSON d'aVENTUEE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

locality, divulging only that he wanders " by the way."' 39 
At times he provides the encounter with a local habitation, 
" by Rybbesdale " or " betuix the aid wark and the nowe." 40 
And yet he follows the lead with a notable difference. 
Wildness of wood and way have for him a charm unknown 
to the trouvere who haunts trim hochet, vergier, or jardin. 41 
He prefers " f ryht " or wilderness and passes often through 



M 16, 24. Valley, A 8, R 19, D 30. Riverside (bank), A 7, 35, 42; R 9; 
D 26; M 13; ef. M 23 (1. 18). The fountain does not appear; but cf. 
well, A 24, D 23. 

39 R 3, 11; D 13 a, 23; M 23. Cf . M 2 a (11. 18, 80). The proverbial 
phrase is immortalized by its connection with the Wife of Bath (Chau- 
cer, Globe Edition, C. T. Prol. 1. 467). The nearest French parallel 
is the rare une voie (pres d'une vote, etc.). Other indefinite terms are 
" by a place," " in a launde," etc., occurring chiefly in the later pieces ; 
A 1, 5, 12, 13, 18, 23; R 4, 14 (1. 30) ; D 5, 15, 16; M 19. 

40 A 30; R 17 (both c. 1310) ; cf . A 8 a, b, 10, 20, 35; M 2. " Here by 
west" (D 8, 15, both c. 1370; A 9, scec. xvi), likewise honoured by a 
place in Chaucer's Prologue (1. 388), is apparently proverbial, and 
without special local significance. It is a peculiarly English phrase, 
quite without French parallel (cf. Seven Sages, ed. Killis Campbell, p. 
159). Probably the term originally had geographical significance. Cf. 
hi este (St. Edmund, King, ed. Furnivall, Early Engl. Poems, p. 87, 
1. 2, ms. c. 1305-10) referring to an eastern region. Cf. also bi weste 
used in texts in some way connected with the west: King Horn (ed. 
McKnight, 1. 5 ) locates " bi weste " the kingdom of the father of Horn, 
whose home according to Schofield's plausible theory (Publ. Mod. Lang. 
Assoc, xviii. p. 10) was in the Isle of Man; the woman who "wonej? by 
west" appears in the collection of a south-western clerk (Boddeker, 
Altengl. Dicht. p. 150) ; the author of Wynnere and Wastoure (o. 1350) 
who " went in the weste " alludes to himself as a " westren wy " and 
belongs to the West-Midland school; the Shipman, "wonynge fer by 
weste " is a man " of Dertemouthe." But before Chaucer's time the 
phrase was sometimes, at least, purely formal: Seven Sages (c. 1275) ; 
also King Horn, ed. Hall, note on 1. 5, p. 91. Its local force persists in 
the "here be west" whereby John Audelay (scec. xv) describes the 
abbey near Shrewsbury (cf. Anglia, xviii. pp. 177 f.). The possible inter- 
pretation " by a waste place " is hardly supportable in view of the 
instances here adduced. 

"Cf. "wyldernes," "wielde waies," etc., A 27, 36; R 11; D 14 b, 15, 
30; M 11. Cf. Padelford, Cambr. Hist, of Engl. Lit. II. p. 446. 



THE CONVENTIONAL FORM 33 

the deep forest 42 instead of along its shaded border. True 
enough, he occasionally selects grove, bower, arbour, or 
garden, 43 but only in the late and lifeless days of the con- 
vention. His marked preference for the " wylde wode " 
lends to his narratives a fresh realism that offsets his failure 
to recount the delights of new-come Spring. 

More radical deviations are introduced by the pious adap- 
ter. If he retains the familiar out-door background, it is 
usually as an empty survival of an earlier mode : 

Bi a forest as y gan walke 
Without a paleys in a leye. 44 

Or he may endow the traditional scene with a spiritual 
significance, as when he wanders " under the leaves of life " 
or " in a valey of f>is restles mynde." 45 The seclusion he 
prefers is sometimes that of chapel or study: 

In a kyrke as [I] can knele 
This endyrs-dey be a wode syde, 46 

and he may reject even the sun-flecked wood-side : 

In a chirche as I gan knele 

This enders daye to here a masse. 47 

The last word in such transformation is spoken by Lydgate : 

42 A 41; D 16, 17, 18, 35; M 12. 

43 Grove, D 28, R 12 ; cf . " blossemed buske," D 26 ( bochet joliet et 
flori, Bartsch, n. 51). Bower, A 1, 35. Arbour, A 19; R 10, 27; cf. 
A 22 (an " erber " in a wood ; cf . vergier . . . en mi forest, Bartsch, II. 
28). "Rosier," D 27; "corner quaint," A 31. Garden, A 17, 21, 44, 
45; R 10, 23; D 27; M 17, 21. Orchard, D 23. Park, D 19, M 6; cf. 
M 2 a, and " Undir a park," MS. Harl. 2255, f. 150 b. 

44 D 12. For similarly strange juxtapositions cf. R 2, 11; D 22 b, etc. 

45 R 1, 19. Cf. the " forest of noyous hevynes," translated from 
Charles d'Orlgans (A 26), 

*=D 22 b. 

"R 18; cf. R 14 (1. 30), 21; D 11. 



34 THE CHANSON d'a VENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

Atween mydnyht and the fressh morwe gray 
Nat yore ago in herte ful pensiff 
Of thouhtful sihes my peyne to put away 
Causid by the trouble of this vnstabil liff. 48 

From this preface we might have expected the poet to ride 
" out throw a f orrest that wes fair " ; 49 but he continues : 

Vnclosyd a book that was contemplatyff 

Of fortune turnyng the book I fond 

A meditaciouw which first cam to myn hond. 

The pedantic clerk here scrupulously preserves the orthodox 
phrasing; but in spirit he has travelled a long road from 
that first English adventurer who set out " by grene wode 
to seche play." 

Sometimes, too, the English writer abandons the quest 
for solitude ; 50 he is no longer attracted bj secluded forest 
or chapel. Boldly he rides through the town, or makes one 
of the jostling clerks in the Yule-day procession, or stands 
among lords and ladies in a crowded hall to study a legend 
written in no secluded spot, but where he who runs may 
read. 51 All such innovation is quite unknown to the few 
composers of pious chansons d'aventure in France. 

When the poet comes to explain his mood and his reasons 
for being abroad, his case is not altered: he conforms, out- 
wardly at least, to French precedent. He is never abroad 
on any definite business ; long before the hour of work-a-day 
duty he has gone forth in pursuit of solace, 52 or more often 

4S R 14, 11. 1-7. ffl D2b. 

50 The secluded character of the setting is explicitly mentioned only 
in late pieces (A 11, 23, 27, 35, 45; D 19; M 19), but it is usually 
implied. 

51 D 33; cf. M 14, where Cheapside replaces forest-side: M 10: D 6, 
21; cf. palace, D 12, M 22. 

52 A 22 ; R 7, 14 ; D 9 c. Cf . the line scribbled on a fly-leaf of Corpus 
Christi Coll. Cambr. MS. 61, and accompanied by the date 1546: " [a] 
daye of may ffor my solas." 



THE CONVENTIONAL FOEM 35 

of pleasure for its own sake, — for disport or play, to hear 
the birds, or to take the air. 53 In one instance, like the 
trouvere seeking for novele amie, he rides out, 

wilde wymmen forte wale 
ant welde whuch ich wolde. 54 

And frequently he is sad at heart, or at least thoughtful, as 
he sets out on the way that leads him to mirthful nightingale 
or to leaden-hued lover. 

He is notably distinguished from the French poet, how- 
ever, by his lack of self-consciousness. Much less interested 
in himself, he often enters into his narrative without any 
suggestion of his own state of mind : 

In a fryht as y con fere fremede 
y founde a wel feyr fenge to fere. 55 

Unless he intends to present his own love-lament, — a rare 
contingency, — he has little to say of a moodiness that is 
without ostensible cause ; 56 he has almost nothing to say of 
the spirits " so burly " 57 that often enliven the trouvere. 
When he prefaces a sober moral theme by a mention of his 
own thoughts or feelings, he is seeking an approach to his 
subject and not the pleasures of self-analysis. Thinking 

53 A 32, 37 (c. 1303), 41; K 13, 17, 24, 26; D 10 b, 16. More formal 
phrases : " ffor my pastyme " or " recreacyoun," " me to rejoyce," " to 
dirkin eftir myrthis," A 11, 45; D 37. To hear birds, A 35; R 22, 27; 
D 3, 30; M 18, 20, 23. To take the air, A 12, 29 d; D 7; cf. E 4 
("Lusty Phebus to supervide " ) , M 11. 

"A 30 (c. 1310). 

05 A 16 (c. 1310). 

66 He is moody in none of the pastourelles (contrast French prece- 
dent). His "dolour" or " musyng " is comprehensible from the situa- 
tion or actually explained in A 22, 38 (probably; a fragment) ; R 6, 7, 
11, 12, 14, 17, 19, 21, 24, 25; D 9 c, 13, 23, 34, 37; M 1, 7, 13, 16, 21; 
it is unaccounted for in A 7, 44; D 31, 35; M 12 b (contradictory in 
A 44 to " plesantly," etc. ) . 

W A 44. 



36 THE CHANSON d' A VENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

" on mi folie," or " bedand myne hourres," he tells us, he is 
led to pray devoutly, or to listen to the Old Testament lore 
of an eloquent turtle-dove ; 58 if his traditional wanton mood 
persists, it is to be chastened: 

As resouw rewlid my richelees mywde 
Bi wielde waies as y hadde went 59 

He contributes new explanations of the traditional pensive- 
ness, — thoughts of death and adversity that sting " vnto the 
herte." 60 He is more likely to assert his definite motive for 
wandering than to expatiate on his mood; in so doing he 
does not betray overmuch of his own personality. He retains 
the time-worn phrases, often at the sacrifice of consistency — 

Als I went by a welle: on my playing 

Thurghe a mery orcherde bedand myne hourres, 61 

or of probability — 

as y me wende omy pley3yng 
on mi folie y bohte. 62 

More often he uses formulas with a familiar structure and 
ring, but a new significance : " o my pley3yng," " to heir thir 



58 R 17, 25; D 23; cf. R 21, M 16, and also Zs. f. rom. pJiil. vni. p. 573 
(Franco-Latin pastourelle : Psalmos intendens psallere) . 

69 R 11. Cf. R 19 (the " restles mynde " quieted by the recognition 
of Christ as the true love) ; D 24 (the hunter, hawk on hand, who goes 
out "to play" sobered by Revertere written on a briar-leaf). 

60 R 12, 14; D 13, 34; etc. Cf. " musyng ... on thyngs that were 
past" or "done by great kings," M 13, 7; also M 16. In R 14, M 13, 
16, the explanation offered is quite unconnected with the theme that 
follows. 

61 D 23 (italics mine) ; cf. A 44; some reconciliation, conscious or not, 
of the contending words in R 6, 12, 24, 27; D 37, etc. 

82 R 17; cf. D 16, where quest for disport leads up to gloomy medi- 
tations. (In D 24 the " f ul glad chere " seems consciously used as a 
foil to the " si^ynge sare " that follows. ) 



THE CONVENTIONAL FOEM 37 

birdis gay," " wilde wymmen forte wale," suffer a change 
into " on my longyng," " to here a masse," " a treulofe for 
to fynd " (one that proves to be Christ, the " treulove that 
fals was neuer "). 63 

When, after these obligatory preliminaries, 64 the wanderer 
happens upon the maiden or her substitute, he pauses to 
describe her, quotes for us a bit of her song, 65 approaches and 
accosts her, all quite in the mode of the French intruders. 66 

He deviates more decidedly from foreign custom in the 
general construction of his narrative. Under his treatment 

63 R 7, 18, 19; cf. R 25, D 23. 

64 Most settings, early and late, omit one or more of the customary 
details; the general tendency is to condensation. 

65 The words sung or spoken (or imprinted on some object) are usually 
given in the form of a refrain closing each strophe; sometimes the 
burden is prefixed to the poem. The imitative refrain is represented 
by the " cum dyry " of the nightingale ( A 7 ) , the " terly " of the shep- 
herds, and the " lullay " of the Virgin-mother (R 8, 7); cf. " nowell," 
" la lay," " hey ho," ( A 7 ; R 23, 26, etc. ) . A feature confined to the 
non-secular adaptations is the Latin refrain line (R 3, 4, 10, 11, 19, 21, 
24; D 9, 16, 22, 24, 30). 

68 The poet sometimes "casts his eyes on every side" (A 41, R 10, 
D 16) before catching sight of the heroine of his adventure; his atten- 
tion, like the French poet's, may be temporarily arrested by a figure 
that soon recedes in favour of the true heroine (A 41). The adventure 
comes "by chance" in A 6, 8 b, 9, 33; R 9, 11, 14; D 13 b (cf. " aven- 
tur," A 24, 45); all late. The maiden (or her substitute) is alone 
(A 27, etc.), in a meadow or under a tree or "buske" (A 4, R 15, 19) ; 
she is "on her way," and "riding" (A 4, 41; cf. also use of "met"). 
She is described (A 1, 4, 10; R 6, 10; D 2 b, 14; M 2, and often; 
expanded description, A 30, 35). The sight of her brings joy (A 7, 12, 
35; R 4; D 22, 30; M 13, 18) or— in didactic pieces— sadness (D 14a, 
23, 24, 30, 36). The poet pauses and ponders (R 4, 9; D 14, 15, 20, 
21, 22, 26, and often; ties his steed, D 35) ; approaches to see or to 
hear (A 4, 14; R 10, 11; D 4, 12, 19, 23; M 23, etc.). If he does not 
conceal his presence, he greets her (A 4, 24) ; she receives him courte- 
ously (A 4, M 2 a) ; she "bids him abide" (A 14, R 4, D 14 a, M 14). 
He asks or wonders who she is, what her song means, and why she 
sings it (A 16; R 10; D 2b, 9 a, b, 16, 17, 22, 23, 30, 35, 36; M 2, 16, 
19, 23). She makes a show of resentment (A 14, 16; D 16) or answers 
readily, or even offers unsolicited explanation (D 30; M 14, 18). 



38 THE CHANSON d'aVENTUKE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

the type fails to maintain the combination of lyric A dramatic, 
and narrative elements that is proper to it. The earliest 
chansons d'aventure, whether amorous or religious, and the 
greater number of the later ones, excepting the didactic, are 
veritable songs, composed probably for musical accompani- 
ment and often repeating in the form of a tuneful burden 
the words of love-sick maiden, Maiden-mother, or comely 
English queen. 67 But a few examples from the secular and 
religious groups, and most from the didactic, are artistic or 
moral efforts rather than spontaneous expressions of feeling; 
they are robbed in spirit, and to a less degree in form, of 
lyric quality. 6S 

The loss in dramatic realism is even more productive of 
change in the adventure-songs. In only about one-half the 
total number are the actors persons whose feelings or actions 
interest the poet. 69 These persons are usually human and 
real in the love poems, — though in several modified examples 
symbolic characters appear, 70 — and they are undeniable per- 
sonalities in a few secular ballads to which the conventional 
setting has been prefixed, such as the tale of clerk Jankyn, of 
the Tule-day procession, who 

67 E. g., A 37; K 6; M 1, 17. 

68 A 45 is not a lyric; D 23 is a long poem, largely expository. Other- 
wise all the poems of the four lists are lyrics. But whereas more than 
half of each of the secular and religious groups consists of real songs, 
carols, or ballads, only a small proportion of the didactic pieces are 
of the song or carol type; the majority of this group, as the minority 
of the others, is made up of formal poems in stanzas of eight lines 
(most commonly the "monk's stanza," ababbcbc; cf. Schipper, Grundr. 
d. Engl. MetriJc, pp. 328 ff. ), twelve lines, seven lines (Chaucerian) or 
thirteen lines (as in Pistill of Susan, etc., cf. Gollancz, Engl. Misc. to 
Furnivall, p. 112, Amours, Scot. Allii. Poems, Scot. Text Soc. pp. 
lxxxiiff.). Most of these poems have a refrain line, sometimes in 
Latin. 

69 In almost two-thirds of groups A and M, but in less than half of 
E, and in only about two-fifths of D. 

10 A 3, 12, 26. 



THE CONVENTIONAL FORM 39 

. . . twynkelid but sayd nowt; 
and on myn fot he trede. 71 

But human actors are replaced in the religious adaptations 
by the divine Mother or Son, or holy shepherds and kings, 
and in the moral and miscellaneous by mere types, — 
" wights," abstractions, or unembodied voices. 72 To the 
moral adapter, especially, the figures with which the con- 
vention provides him are not individuals, but only convenient 
mouth-pieces; indeed, as far as he is concerned, a man 
and a bird can sing with equal effectiveness the song of 
Timor Mortis™ Birds take the place of personal actors, 
rarely in the secular poems, but more often in the religious 
modifications, and frequently in the didactic. 74 These relig- 
ious and moral fowls have in them little of the songster and 
much of the homilist ; and even the amorous lark startles us 
with his statement that he is Troilus's heir in love, and with 
his motto, car vene me ad purchace la mort. 75 Lifeless 
substitutes for personal actors appear in the religious adapta- 
tions, and are adopted with enthusiasm by the moralists: 
holy images that inspire meditation or seem to speak, or 
legends inscribed on conveniently located pages, walls, or 
briar leaves. 76 In their avoidance of such symbols and in- 



11 M 10. 

72 D 7, 8, 32; M 24: D 12: D 37, M 21. Typical figures are common: 
age warning youth, the jolly foster, Meed, Eleanor of Gloucester as a 
type of one fallen from high estate, etc. (D 10, 26, 31; M 3, 22, etc.). 

73 D 9. Cf. D 8 and 16. 

"Birds appear in but four of the love poems and five of the 
secular imitations; they appear in one-fourth of the religious group 
and in almost one-third of the didactic. The appearance of other 
animals in M 6, 12, 16, 23 (buck, hare, lion, etc.) shows that the type 
is far from its origin. The birds are used to disguise personalities, 
A 14; R 15; M 16, 23. 

75 A 22. 

78 Images, R 12; cf. R 18. 24. Inscriptions, R 14, 21; D 3, 6, 13, 20, 
21, 24, 29, 33. 



40 THE CHANSON d'aVENTTTRE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

scriptions, as of oppressively pedantic fowls, the secular 
adapters are most faithful to their realistic models. 

As a rule the adventures are related as matters of actual 
and definite fact, even when they concern beings higher than 
human, prating birds, or lifeless figure-heads, or when they 
resolve themselves into meditations of the poet. " Mett y 
wyhte Ihesu to chyrcheward gone," says a devout wanderer, 
and a lover laments, "I gan remembre me " of " my seruyse " 
and " gret aduersyte." 77 But the poets who tell such tales 
have obviously left dramatic realities far behind, and we 
are not surprised when they " waxe wery " and sleep awhile 
before recording the arrival of a lady who bears a wondrous 
ring, or the declaration of a nightingale that " kysse of 
women wyrkyth wo." 78 Those clerks who lack the boldness 
to meet and speak with the divine Mother or her Son, trans- 
form the actual meeting in the greenwood to an imaginary 
encounter : 

As I me went )?is enderday 

Al-one on my longyng, 

Me thowth I say a wel fayre may. 79 

77 R 2, A 46. 

78 D 3, M 18. The line of demarcation between actual and imaginary 
adventure must necessarily be somewhat arbitrary. It is often impos- 
sible to determine whether a given poem originated in the writer's 
conception as a vision-poem and was fitted out with the setting proper 
to the chanson d'aventure, or as a chanson d'aventure which permitted 
the intrusion of visionary elements; the latter would seem to be true 
of R 7. It is also impossible at times to decide whether the poet's nap, 
mentioned casually in the preface, is an incidental preliminary or a 
fact to be reckoned with throughout the narrative (e. g., A 35, D 30, 
M 18). The only feasible course is to assign doubtful poems to the 
adventure-type if the prevailing impression given by the narrative 
proper is that of an actual occurrence. The following poems, listed as 
adventure-poems, have some suggestions of the vision- type: A 35; R 7; 
D 3, 30, 36; M 18, 23; cf. M 13, 1. 4. In D 36, M 23, the idea of a 
dream comes as an afterthought at the close. In D 3 the impression 
of a dream-event is stronger than in any of the others. 

79 R 7. 



THE CONVENTIONAL FORM 41 

Though poems of this type dwell, vividly enough, on concrete 
and life-like scenes: 

pe mayd went with-owt song 
Hir child on slepe to bring; 
J?e child thowth che ded hym wrong 
And bad his moder syng, 

yet they offer a very close approach to the vision. 

Even the narrative element tends to disappear in the 
hands of the English poet, who manifestly prefers forms in 
which he is not an active participant. 80 He shows slight 
favour to the pastourelle and is likely to leave it unfinished ; 
he lapses into unbroken reverie now and then in the secular 
chanson d'aventure, more often in the religious, and regularly 
in the didactic, though in the latter the meditation is ordi- 
narily transferred from the lips of the poet to those of some 
conventional spokesman. 81 He is quick to abandon the pre- 
tense that he himself watches or overhears the little drama 
which he presents ; he easily forgets that he has claimed as 
his own the soliloquy which he quotes, and has even pointed 
out the definite day, hour, and place of its utterance. 82 

80 He represents himself as constant participant in only about one- 
third of the love adventures (including the soliloquies) and in a much 
smaller percentage — about one-eighth — of the adaptations. (Computa- 
tion is uncertain, because it is frequently impossible to determine 
whether the poet means a monologue to pass as his own or as that of 
the figure encountered.) 

81 The average didactic poet disclaims responsibility for the monologue 
he presents; cf. D 15: 

Hit [the bird] coube not speke, but bus hit mente: 
How Merci passeb alle binge. 

82 As in A 21. Lack of connection between reverie and narrative 
setting exists in extreme degree in "Alone walking, In thought pleyn- 
ing" (Skeat, Chauc. Pieces, p. 448; cf. a similar poem, Bel. Ant. I. p. 
26 ) . Neither poem presents a definite adventure. In three pastou- 
relles in ballad form (A 5, 29, 41) the poet, like the trouvere, soon 
ceases to identify himself with the wooer. 



42 THE CHANSON DAVENTTTRE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

As a rule he refrains from mentioning himself and his 
hiding-place S3 or from recording his departure. 84 A few of 
the later poets, particularly of the Scottish school, maintain 
their assumed role to a certain extent by referring at the 
close of the story to the landscape sketched in the preface; 
but the repetition, mechanical and at times somewhat incon- 
sistent with the initial setting, cannot be considered as indi- 
cating that the author vividly realizes the situation. 85 Two 
of the earliest poets definitely introduce themselves in a 
double capacity, — first as minstrel proper and, a few lines 
later, as adventurer. 86 In each case the poet represents him- 
self in the first strophe as a singer prepared to offer his song, 
and begins the proposed song in the second strophe with the 
formula peculiar to the chanson d'aventure. The form is 
borrowed direct from over-sea : 87 but whereas the trouvere 



S3 Bits of narrative or comment that interrupt the monologues or 
dialogues are usually such as are common to narrators, and not pecu- 
liar to an eye-witness. The poet's progress from place to place is a 
late elaboration (R 10, lib, 15; D 22; M 23) ; his reappearance at the 
close is rare (occurring in about one-seventh of the chansons d'aventure 
in which he is not a constant actor). 

84 A 45 (Dunbar's Tua Mariit Wemen) is exceptional; its close is 
in the manner of the Boke of the Duchesse, etc. 

85 A 12, 21, 24, 31, 35, 45; R 2, 20; D 1, 10, 15, 23, 31; M 19, 23. Nine 
of these are Scotch, or in a distinctly Scotch tradition. The habit is 
certainly not French in origin. It may be a result of the familiarity 
of fifteenth century Scotch poets with the older alliterative poetry of 
the West Midland school (cf. Schipper, William Dunbar, p. 133). Two 
conventions of that poetry are the initial nature setting, in which the 
poet is introduced as hero, and the repeated setting at the close (e. g., 
Pari, of Thre Ages, Piers Plowman, Pearl, Buke of the Howlat). It is 
quite conceivable that a fifteenth century Scotchman, at work on a 
short chanson d'aventure, should modify its close under the influence 
of longer pieces of similar structure current in his region. Indeed, 
Dunbar's Tua Mariit Wemen (A 45) furnishes a clear instance of the 
fusion of the two types, as does also M 19, a late English poem. (It is 
noteworthy that alliteration is strongly marked in the Scotch pieces 
in question.) 

88 R 17, 25, both c. 1310. 

87 For the French parallel, cf. above, Ch. i. § B, n. 8. The correspond- 



THE CONVENTIONAL, FOKM 43 

is moved by the beauty of the Spring to sing of his adventure 
with the belle Amelinete, the English imitator is inspired to 
an adventure-song which almost immediately develops into 
a soliloquy in praise of Him " (>at £>erled was ys side." 88 
In structure, then, the English chanson aVaventure repro- 
duces the corresponding French form; a narrative in which 
dramatic and lyric elements are more or less highly de- 
veloped, is set within a framework in which the poet appears 
as narrator. The direct influence of foreign chansons on 



ence has not to my knowledge been noted hitherto. Patterson (if. Engl. 
Pen. Lyric) notes the first strophe of R 17 as parallel to the opening 
of a chanson d' amour (p. 33) and the second of R 17 and 25, the 
" setting proper," as imitated from the chanson a personnages (pp. 39, 
177 ) ; but he does not point out any French chanson combining the two 
preludes. — In view of the genesis here established, propositions to dis- 
card either the first or the second strophe of K 17 and 25 may hence- 
forth be disregarded. Wissmann (Literaturbl. 1880, p. 215) and Aust 
(Herrig's Archiv, ixx. p. 272) would reject the second stanza of 25 
(to which poem the discussion is chiefly limited) ; Lauchert (Engl. 
Stud. xvi. p. 140 ) , the first, if either. Aust's charge of faulty thought 
sequence is hardly sustained; in each poem the two settings and the 
body are linked by one idea, i. e., in 25, the mercy of Jesus, and in 17, 
the decay of earthly fairness in death, from which Jesus, at Mary's 
intercession, may save us. The difference in rhyme scheme between the 
first and the succeeding strophes of 25 (cf. Lauchert) is not ground for 
rejection of the first; cf. the variation within single French chansons 
(Bartsch, n. 12, 20, 21, 27, etc.) and within A 16, an English poem in 
the same collection as R 25; moreover, strophe one (aabccbddb) and 
the others (aabaab or aabccb) have the same basic combination; finally, 
it is not strange that a minstrel should somewhat differentiate his 
prelude from his song. — The conventionality of this form furnishes 
added argument against Boddeker's supposition of common authorship 
for R 17 and 25 (Altengl. Dicht. pp. 213, 193; cf. Wissmann, Aust, 
Lauchert, I. c.) ; though it is not altogether improbable that one author 
should repeat one formula in several poems, as the custom of Jehan 
Erart, Ernoul le Viel, Thibaut de Navarre, and many other trouveres 
indicates (Bartsch, in. 15-24, 6-9, 4-5, etc.). 

88 The few later chansons d'aventure prefaced or interrupted by the 
ballad-singer's call for attention, confidence, or refreshment, are not in 
the same category; the minstrel makes no claim to authorship of the 
narrative he recites, or to identity with its hero; cf. A 13, R 15, D 12 



44 THE CHANSON DAVENTTTKE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

external form is manifested in the lyrics with double setting, 
with prefixed burden representing the maiden's song, and 
with the linking of strophes by repetition; 89 French influ- 
ence on phraseology is evident in the preliminary nature- 
settings. Nevertheless, the differences between the English 
and the French adventure-songs are so marked that one can 
safely conclude that the English poets were not slavishly 
translating or imitating particular foreign models, but rather 
working in accord with familiar tradition. Doubtless the 
later English writers knew the tradition much better through 
its earlier English exponents than through the French. 

These differences are chiefly due to the comparatively late 
appearance of the type in England, and to the character and 
tastes of the English authors. To the first cause we may 
attribute the condensed form of setting, reminiscent of the 
later French type, and especially common in Tudor songs in 
which the words are merely incidental to the music ; to this 
cause we may attribute likewise the elaborations of phrase- 
ology, description, and action, produced under the influence 
of Chaucerian diction and of the more ambitious types of 
narrative popularized through the Romance of the Rose and 
Piers Plowman. But the majority of the peculiarities in 



(Porkington version, unprinted). In the last named text strophe 13 
interrupts the story of a woodland encounter: 

Yfe ae woll here his songe to ennde 
Howe they endyde longe in fere 
I schall yowe tell or I wende 
Howe mercy ys all and hase no pere 
Of goddes grace I rede yowe lere 
The nere be ende ]>e sonnge ys beste 
Geyfe me drenke and je schall here 
Here ys a fette nowe wyll I reste. 

(On such traditional minstrel-calls, cf. F. Ktihner, Litt. Charakteristik 
d. Roxburghe- u. Bagford-Balladen, Freiburg, 1895, p. 43. Cf. Roxburghe 
Ballads, ed. Hindley, 1873-1874, u. p. 329, for a late chanson d'aventure 
with the minstrel's preface.) 
89 A 16; cf. A 21. 



THE CONVENTIONAL FOBM 45 

the English poems, and the most significant, are attributable 
to the character of the authors, who reveal their clerkly 
tendencies in their songs ; the poets are probably often wan- 
dering clerks, who differ from the trouvere, aristocrat and 
conscious artist that he is, not only in their preference for 
religious and moral themes, but also in their sympathy with 
the common people. As poets in close touch with the people 
they betray no interest in self-exploitation, and willingly 
lessen or relinquish their fictitious roles ; they manifest no 
class-pride (no longer do they " come riding ") and no love of 
formality, which would lead them to prefer bower to green- 
wood. As adventurers with a purpose, they introduce into 
the stereotyped settings such unaccustomed features as even- 
ing, wintry cold, and sober moral meditation; they transfer 
the scene to town, or chapel, or the valley of unstable mind ; 
they choose a state of inaction, conducive to profitable thought, 
in preference to idle wandering or merry cantering through 
forest-ways ; they show a liking for their own soliloquies, and 
also for superhuman or lifeless figures, which do much to rob 
the chanson d'aventure of its realism, and which facilitate its 
transformation into an account of visionary happenings. It 
is at the hands of these clerks that the English chanson 
d'aventure, though preserving a semblance of narrative and 
dramatic form, loses its marked narrative, dramatic, and 
lyric qualities, and becomes ordinarily a meditative poem 
fitted out with an adventitious and often incongruous prelude. 
Finally the " makars " of Dunbar's school are perhaps to 
answer for the device of the repeated setting; and for the 
marked alliteration as well as for purely English phrases such 
as " here by west " or " wandering by the way " the whole 
body of writers this side the Channel are responsible. 



Ill 

THE THEMES 

A minority only of the Middle English chansons d'aven- 
ture are love-songs ; the majority deal with moral or religions 
or occasional themes. In spite of their very different sub- 
stance and tone, all the adaptations are nevertheless capable 
of being classified, like the amorons models, either as chan- 
sons dramatiques or as ■pastourelles, according as the poet 
either overhears a monologue or dialogue, or offers his own 
devotion to some adored being. This distinction is not, 
however, equally significant in all types of adaptation. It 
retains its importance in those poems wherein the author is 
really concerned with the actors as such, with their personal 
feelings and their personal relations to each other and to 
him, — that is, particularly in the religious songs. The dis- 
tinction is not vital, on the other hand, in the moral and in 
most of the miscellaneous adaptations, in which the poet, 
bent solely upon setting forth a lesson, cares not at all whether 
that lesson be enunciated by one speaker or several, by man, 
maid, or bird, and whether he himself be expositor or silent 
auditor. Accordingly, in the following discussion of the 
four types of chansons d'aventure the distinction between 
chanson dramatique and pastourelle will be emphasized only 
in the sections treating the first two types, amorous and 
religious. 

A. Amorous 

The amorous chansons d'aventure are infrequent, in com- 
parison with their abundant Old French prototypes, in the 
Middle English period; they nevertheless constitute a very 
46 



THE THEMES 47 

definite type, and one that was established in English poetry 
by the beginning of the fourteenth century. 1 

The earliest example is a chanson dramatique embodying 
the complaint of a maiden. In this poem, which dates in 
present form probably before 1303, 2 the author tells of over- 
hearing the song of a " litel mai " whose lover " chaunges 
anewe " : 

no[w] spri[nke]s the sprai. 

al for loue icche am so seeke 

that slepen i ne mai. 

Close in structure and detail to French tradition as it is, the 
song may have been taken direct from some French chanson 
dramatique; 3 if so, its original is one of that small minority 

1 An English development of the type prior to 1300 may be assumed 
on the ground that four amorous poems of about 1300 are found in 
three different manuscripts, and that three at least present noteworthy 
and consistent divergence from French methods of treatment; more- 
over, religious adaptations have had time to appear (cf. K 13, 17, 25, in 
Harl. MS. 2253, c. 1310, the manuscript that contains two of the earliest 
amorous examples). 

2 A 37. On the date cf. Woodbine, Mod. Lang. Rev. rv. p. 236; Skeat, 
ibid., v. p. 104. 

3 It corresponds closely, for instance, with Bartsch, II. 7, as the 
following parallel demonstrates: 

No[w] spri[nke]s the sprai. 
al for loue icche am so seeke 
that slepen ine mai. 

1 als i me rode this endre dai a L'autrier defors Picarni 

o mi [pleyinge] juer m'en alai, 

s[ei]h i hwar a litel mai une pastoure choisi 

bigan to singge. ke crioit ' hahai, 

5 the clot him clingge b lasse, ke ferai? 

wai es him i louue l[on]g[in]ge jeu ai perdu mon ami: 
sal libben ai. jamais n'amerai 

Nou sprinkes, etc. nullui de cuer gai.' 

8 MS. this endre dai als i me rode. 
b MS. clingges. 



48 THE CHANSON D'AVENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

in France in which the pucelete (not designated as a shep- 
herdess) does not receive the poet's advice and solace. The 
other laments of forsaken maidens, all considerably later, 4 
adhere less closely to the French models; yet the features 
that mark that mode have persisted. When the poet draws 
near and accosts the girl he finds that her dear love has 

Son icche herde that mirie note Si tost com j'oi le cri 

yider i drogh celle part tornai; 

10 i fonde hire [in] an herber swot deles un arbre foilli 

under a bogb. la belle trovai, 

With ioie inogh. et li demandai 

son i asked thou mirie mai por coi k'elle dist ensi: 
hwi sinkes tou ai? jamais n'amerai 

Nou sprinkes the sprai, nullui de cuer gai. 

etc. 

15 than answerde that maiden swote Et elle me respondi 

midde wordes fewe. 'je le vos dirai: 

mi lemman me haues bi hot Eobins d'autrui ke de mi 

of louue trewe. prist chapel de glai. 

he chaunges a newe. si grant duel en ai 

20 thiif i mai it shal him rewe. ke nel puis mettre en obli. 
bi this dai. jamais n'amerai 

Now sprinkes. nullui de cuer gai.' 

In a fourth stanza Bartsch, n. 7, records the poet's successful wooing; 
the French poem, though a close parallel, is not the direct original. 
Nor is Bartsch, m. 38, which like A 37 is confined to the lament of the 
pastourelle. Notable parallels to French usage are: "that slepen ine 
mai" (cf. Bartsch, i. 38, 1. 4, I. 61, 1. 36); " litel mai," "maiden 
swote" (cf. pucelete, tousete) ; "with ioie inogh"; "mi lemman . . . 
louue trewe " ; " herber swot," in place of " f ryht," etc. ( cf . vergier gai, 
Bartsch, n. 113). — The rhyme scheme and the burden likewise suggest 
French influence. 

4 A 6, 8, 27, 39, 43; four written down after 1500, the other (8) a 
traditional ballad. For the theme not in chanson d'aventure form, cf. 
four songs of ms. Caius Coll. Cambr. 383, scec. xv. fol. 210, " Bryd on 
brere y telle yt to" and "pei y synge and murp I make"; fol. 41, 
" Wybbe ne rele ne spynne yc ne may," and " Alas, alas be wyle pat 
euer y coude daunce " ( in which the girl laments her betrayal by 
" Jak, oure haly water clerk." Cf. also " But late in place A pretye 
lasse" (Wit and Science, Shak. Soc. 1848, p. 58), scec. xvi, first half; 
a poem reminiscent in form of the chanson d'aventure. 



THE THEMES 49 

" gone away/' " hath chosen a new," 5 or that a " wanton 
child " or perhaps quidam clericus has beguiled her ; he 
hears her frank reference to the shame that awaits her, her 
expression of fear at the thought of parental anger, and her 
proud resolve to waste no more thought on her faithless lover : 

Now hit ys so 
lefe of my woe 
with gode devyse 
And let hyw goo. 6 

If the maiden's plaint is caused by her vain longing to know 
the joys of love, 7 she cries rebellion against her interfering 
parents : 

5 A 8, 39. 

6 For these details, cf. A 27, 43. The motif of the " clerk and the 
girl " is here probably an English inheritance (cf. the song cited in 
n. 4, and Boddeker, Altengl. Dicht. p. 172, etc.), though there is of 
course French parallel; cf. U clers of Bartsch, n. 59, and also the song 
(Haupt, Fr. Volkslieder, p. 81) : 

Langueo d'amours, ma doulce fillette 
dum video vos au verd boys seullette. 



Verno tempore florissant rosette 
et in aurora chante l'alouette, 
philomela dit en sa chansonnette 
' non est clericus qui n'a s'amyette.' 



To this song A 43 is evidently related in some degree: 

Vp y arose in verno tempore 

and found a maydyn sub quadam arbore 

That did complayne in suo pectore: 



Now what shall y say meis parewtibus 
Bycause y lay with quidam clericus. 

7 A 18, 19. For later echoes of the theme cf. Mother Watkin's Ale 
(J. Lilly, A Collection of Seventy-nine Ballads and Broadsides, London, 
1870, p. 251) which bears traces of the chanson d'aventure setting; 
Bagford Ballads, ed. Ebsworth, I. 24, 125 (cf. n. 930) ; The Pilgrim's 
Garland (a collection of songs, probably scec. xvrii), p. 4; etc. 

4 



50 THE CHANSON d'aVENTTTRE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

My fathar, my mothar, my mastar, nor my dam 
Shall not let me, I shar [ ? swar] by sent Tyve ; 8 

she is troubled with the fear that she will remain forever a 
maid, having been too ready with her coy rejection of Robin 
Bruckeholl's suit. 9 The monologues of these forsaken or 
loveless maids are interrupted by the lover's tardy arrival, 
or by the poet's brief question. 10 The poet, however, never 
appoints himself chief counsellor, as the chevalier was wont 
to do; and he sometimes so far forgets his adopted role of 
witness to a definitely localized scene that he allows himself 
to relate the subsequent history of the maiden, or to utter 
a warning to all women who read his tale. 11 The wanton 
grace of the early French chansons is altogether lacking; 
the primitive motifs, though still persisting, have fallen upon 
evil days. 

The complaint of the unhappy young wife occurs in a few 
late chansons d'aventure composed chiefly in Scotland. 12 
The theme, independent of the narrative setting, was known 
in fourteenth century England, as is proved by the scrap of 
French verse that apparently formed part of the repertory 
of some English singer: 

Amy tenetz vous ioyous si mwrra mi gelous, 13 

and also by one of those worldly songs that the Bishop of 
Ossory undertook to transform into pious hymns, lest they 
pollute the lips of his young clerks: 

8 A 18. 

9 A remote parallel occurs in the situation of the French dame, 
commented on by Jeanroy, Origines, pp. 96 ff. 

10 A 8, 39; A 6. 

"A 6, 8. In the course of such narrative, the maiden's refrain 
changes to suit the altered situation (A 6; cf. Bartsch, u. 7, 32, 51, 
etc.). 

12 A 2, 9, 13, 20, 45, all c. 1500 or later; all Scotch except 13. 

13 Ms. Eawl. D. 913, scec. xiv. beg., ed. Anglia, xxx, p. 173. 



THE THEMES 51 

Alas, hou shold y syng yloren is my playng 
Hon shold y with that olde man 
To leven and [oblit.~\ my leman (ms. lemon) 
Swettist of al thinge. 14 

Here is something of the naive rebellion of the chanson de 
mat mariee. But in the chansons aVaventure devoted to the 
theme a different spirit rules. A strong tendency to satire, 
to broad comedy and burlesque, and a deliberately cynical 
attitude on the part of the eavesdropping poet, render them 
comparable to their popular contemporaries in France rather 
than to their semi-aristocratic prototypes of the twelfth and 
thirteenth centuries. The young wife's frankly avowed 
grievance, 

... I dar nocht luik our the stair 
Scantlie to gif Schir Johne ane kiss, 15 

is assigned to her by a " makar " with manifest delight in 
satiric side-thrusts. Her boisterous victory over her husband 
in a battle of blow® 16 is a burlesque of her old mutiny : 

ne me bates mie, 
maleuroz maris, 

vos ne m'aveis pas norrie. 17 

With her, honis soit maris hi dure plus d'un mois 18 has be- 

™Eist. MSS. Comm. X. App. Pt. 5, p. 244; cf. pp. 219 ff. A series of 
cantilenae contained in the " Red Book of Ossory," a record of the 
acts of the synod of. the diocese, are there ascribed to Richard de 
Ledrede or Lederede, Bishop of Ossory from about 1316 till 1360; 
prefixed to some of the Latin songs are lines in English and Old 
French (including the lines here quoted), which are presumably taken 
from the worldly songs to which the Bishop objected. 

15 A 20 ; cf . a reference, not particularly satiric, to " Messire Jean " 
in Parducci, no. 3, not a chanson d'aventure. For other satiric elements 
in the English poems, cf. also A 13, and especially the closing words 
of A 45. 

16 A 9. " Bartsch, i. 45. 18 Bartsch, n. 27. 



52 THE CHANSON d'aVENTUBE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

come, " God gif matrimony were made to mell for ane 
3eir " ; 19 her revolt is less against the despised husband than 
against the binding institution of marriage: 

Ye suld heir tell, and he war gane, 
That I suld be ane wantoun ane. 



Wa worth maryage for evirmair ! 20 

In spite of her scorn for the " churle," her husband, she is 
usually of no higher rank, and certainly of no higher tastes, 
than he ; 21 standing with him as a mark for the cynicism 
of the poet, she is indeed unlike the dame of the French 
songs, wedded to a vilain, pitied and consoled, if not alto- 
gether respected, by the condescending poet. 

Yet the adventures with the discontented wives are not 
without reminiscences of their origin. Three of the five 
types noted by Gaston Paris 22 are represented among the 
English songs : those in which the poet overhears the woman's 
monologue, 23 her dispute with her husband, 24 and her inter- 
change of confidences with other women ; 25 likewise the later 
variation that presents a young girl soon to be wedded to a 
man who does not please her fancy. 26 The poem most in 
keeping with French tradition is the Wa Worth Maryage, 
the lament of a " sweit ane " reported by a poet who refrains 

19 A 45. 20 A 20. 

21 A 20, 45; cf. A 9. A 45 refers to a difference in rank between 
husbands and wives (11. 311-12: "the seuerance wes mekle Betuix his 
bastard blude, et my birth noble"), but the manners of the fine ladies 
are rude and boisterous, and the lovers whom they choose are not of 
the social level of the consoling chevaliers. 

22 Cf. above, Chap. i. § B. 

23 A 20. 

24 A 9. Cf. the ballad celebrating marital strife, c. 1450 (Wright, 
Songs and Carols, Percy Soc. p. 51) with a reminiscence of the chanson 
d'aventure formula in 1. 1 : " Thys indrys day befel a stryfe." 

25 A 13, 45. (The mother acts as confidante to the mal mari6 in A 31.) 

26 A 2. 



THE THEMES 53 

from comment and is presumably not wholly unsympa- 
thetic. 27 The young woman resents the jealous spying of 
the churl who claims her, to her impotent disgust; she re- 
grets the vanished pleasures of her girlhood, in compensation 
for which marriage has offered her none of the hoped-for 
joys; she longs for her own death or for that of her hus- 
band ; in the latter happy event, she boasts : 

I suld put on my russet gowne, 
My reid kirtill, my hois of brown; 
And lat thame se my yallow hair, 
Undir my curche hingand down. 



Luffaris bayth suld heir and se 

I suld luif thame that wald luif me. 

Bot ay unweddit suld I be. 

Kirtle and kerchief are Scotch enough ; but the " sweit ane " 
plainly has a French ancestry. So too have the wife, but 
three days wed, abusing her husband, the woman confiding 
to a sympathetic " gossip " her expectation of her husband's 
death, and the young girl rebelling against her father's choice 
of a mate for her. They remind us of the mariees de novel, 
the compaignete, the woman crying, A un vilain m'ont donee 
mi parent; 2S but they do less honour to their origin. 

One Scotch mat mariee, who appears with a pair of confi- 
dantes, is deserving of special consideration for the reason 
that, though well-known, she is not generally recognized as 
the heroine of a chanson dramatique. And indeed, Dun- 
bar's Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo 29 is not, strictly 
speaking, an adventure-lyric. It is a lengthy poem, com- 
posed of long, unrhymed, alliterative lines, — in no sense a 

27 A 20. Yet it is this poet who alludes to her flirting with Schir 
Johne. 
^Bartsch, I. 21, 67, 64. "A 45. 



54 THE CHANSON d'aVENTUKE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

lyric. Moreover, it issues directly from a literary line other 
than that of the chansons d'aventure; for it is an inheritor 
of the tradition of those mediaeval satires against marriage 
that culminated in the Prologue of the Wife of Bath. 30 But 
its structure is not accounted for by any anti-marital satire, 31 
whereas it is precisely paralleled among the Old French 
chansons d'aventure. Dunbar goes forth before dawn on Mid- 
summer-day, and finds in a green arbour three gay ladies 
whose beauty he describes. Concealing himself behind the 
hawthorn hedge, he plays the eavesdropper while they abuse 
the absent unfortunates, their husbands. In the matching 
of tales the most experienced of them all, the " wedo," out- 
does the " weddit wemen 3ing," and she urges them on, with 
questionable advice, to more violent rebellion. The close, in 
which the poet relates that after their departure he with- 
draws to a pleasant arbour to write down all that he has 
heard, is in the vein of Chaucer rather than of the trouvere; 
but the narrative as a whole is strangely reminiscent of the 
Old French chanson d'aventure already described, 32 in which 
two young brides, brightly and richly clad, are incited to 
rebellion against their absent husbands by the violence of 
a third, the eldest of them all. Moreover, the points urged 
by the " Wedo " and her " cumaris," — the churlishness of 
the husband, the endlessness of the marriage-bond, the hope 
of consolation from a seemlier friend, " the seuerance be- 



80 Cf. Schipper, William Dunbar, p. 144; Mead, "The Prologue of the 
Wife of Bath's Tale," Publ. Mod. Lang. Assoc, xvi. pp. 388 ff.; Lowes, 
" Chaucer and. the Miroir de Mariage," III. Mod. Philol. vili. pp. 305 ff. 
The eldest of these three mal mariees is, indeed, a widow, like Dame 
Alisoun. 

31 A Talk of Ten Wives on their Husband's Ware (ed. Furnivall, 
Jyl of Breyntford's Testament, Ballad Soc. 1871) from Porkington MS. 
10, c. 1460, presents the women exchanging experiences; but there is no 
trace of the chanson d'aventure form, nor does any one woman take the 
part of adviser-in-chief. 

82 Bartsch, i. 21; above, Chap. I. § B. Cf. also three women in later 
French songs, Paris, Chansons, nos. 21, 88. 



THE THEMES 55 

tuix his [the husband's] bastard blude " and the woman's 
" birth noble," and many others, — though doubtless they 
have come to Dunbar through the medium of the satirists, 
Chaucer and Deschamps and Jean de Meun, 33 are such as 
can claim ultimate origin in the chansons de mal mariee of 
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 

It would seem, then, that Dunbar's poem owes its cen- 
tral situation directly, and some of its details probably 
indirectly, to the French lyrics of adventure. The theory 
offers nothing improbable. Dunbar undoubtedly was fami- 
liar with the foreign convention. Poets of his school wrote 
amorous adventure-lyrics, 34 and he himself produced several 
other modifications of the type. 35 Moreover, his Tua Mariit 
Wemen belongs to the years immediately subsequent to the 
wander jahre spent in France, 36 during which he could hardly 
have failed to hear the songs of the folk as well as those of 
Chartier, Charles d' Orleans, and Villon, who have been 
pointed out as the poets most likely to have influenced him ; 
among the popular songs those relating to the mal mariee 
would have, by virtue of their piquancy, a peculiar appeal to 
a satirist like Dunbar. Taking some song of adventure with 
trois dames marie es de novel as a basis, he amplified and 
modified it, we may conjecture, under the influence of the 
Wife's famous Prologue. Perhaps as a tour de force he cast 
the whole into the form of the long alliterative narratives, 
which were enjoying a considerable vogue in the North in his 
time ; a procedure the more explicable in view of the fact that 

33 The probability that the early chansons de mal mariee have 
influenced the laments of La Vielle, Le Jaloux, and other precursors 
of the Wife of Bath has not been mentioned by Professor Mead or 
Professor Lowes. 

3i A 6, 10, 12, 20, 21, 24, 34, 35, 42. 

35 A 23, R 20, M 21 are Dunbar's; D 2 b is ascribed to him. 

36 On the date and conditions under which the poem was written, 
cf. Schipper, William Dunbar, p. 135; Dunbar, ed. Scot. Text Soc. I. 
pp. xxvi ff., lxxxvii, clviii. 



56 THE CHANSON DA VENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

the alliterative poems commonly open with a nature setting in 
which the poet appears as narrator. Whatever his method 
of composition may have been, it was certainly not uninflu- 
enced by the tradition of the chansons d 'adventure that 
present the femme mal mariee. 

An unfortunate lover or mismated husband replaces the 
woman in a few English and Scotch songs. 37 The plaints 
of the lover are prevailingly courtly. Leaden-hued wights 
in pleasant gardens 38 make their moan for ladies fair as 
Helen of Greece, but false, or pitiless, or perhaps lost through 
death ; 39 among them no Robin bewails the caprices of a 
Marot. One " berne abbydyng on the bent," about whose 
" freche effeir " there is a suggestion of miraculous light, 
proves to be Pandarus, who " sumtyme servit the gud knycht 
Troyelus " ; hardly a lover himself, to be sure, but certainly 
a counsellor competent to tell the questioning poet " quhen 
ladeis to thair luvaris salbe leill." 40 But the popular note 
is not wholly lacking. The lover who is driven by his cruel 
mistress to mourn, " I well perscyue that I shall dye," 
relieves his feelings prettily, if inconsequentially, by the 
refrain : 

Colle to me the rysshys grene, colle to me ! 41 

Less refined taste marks the poems that present the Scottish 
" heynd cheild " and his English counterpart, " good Jo- 



37 Lover's lament, A 11, 12, 17, 33, 34, 40, 44, all c. 1500 or later; 
Wyatt is the author of 33; 12 and 24 are Scotch. Mismated hus- 
band's lament, A 31, 42, both c. 150O or later; 42 is Scotch. 

38 A 17, 44. "He had lost his colour cleane" finds French precedent 
(Bartsch, i. 61; si pert a ma color), but is probably inspired in these 
Tudor songs by Lydgate's Black Knight (Skeat, Chauc. Pieces, p. 249, 
1. 132) and Chaucer's "man in blak " (Boke of the Duchesse, Chaucer, 
Globe Edition, 1. 445). 

39 Compared to Helen, A 34; false, 33; pitiless, 11, 17; removed by 
death, 44 (presumably), a poem which is suggestive of the Black Knight 
and the Boke of the Duchesse. 

40 A 12. "A 11. 



THE THEMES 57 

han " ; 42 they harp on the laughter-provoking theme of the 
husband so misused and beaten by a scolding wife that her 
death would be " great joye " : 

God gif I wer wedo now! 

But whether he sing for court or tavern, the composer of 
these lyrics refrains from offering comfort in the superior 
manner dear to the trouvere; 43 he is always content to utter 
no more than the traditional leading question. 

Dialogues between lovers are very few among pre-Eliza- 
bethan chansons d'aventure 44 and very remote in spirit from 
their French origin. Debates of amorous request and re- 
sistance are found in an unpleasant account of a Scotch 
il bern " and his " bricht " 45 and in a jeu d'esprit from the 
repertory of a ballad-singer, which begins succinctly : 



42 A 31, 42. 

43 He offers such counsel in Wyatt's " A Eobyn, / joly Robyn " (Padel- 
ford, XVI. Cent. Lyrics, p. 10), not to be classed as a pastourelle in 
the technical sense, since the obligatory debut is lacking. 

44 A 15, 23, 25. — The amorous debate independent of the conventional 
framework exists abundantly; e. g., the dialogue of the clerk and the 
girl (Boddeker, Altengl. Dicht. p. 172), the Nut Brown Maid (Chambers 
and Sidgwick, p. 34), and "Hey, troly loly lo, maid, whither go you?" 
and "Come over the woodes fair and green" (ibid., pp. 62, 64). The 
debate in chansoyi d'aventure form occurs in late street-ballads; cf. 
among many, Shirburn Ballads, ed. Clark, Oxford, 1907, no. 52, p. 220, 
" All in a garden green," a song more directly related to the chansons 
d'aventure of France and England than to the twenty- seventh Idyll 
of Theocritus, of which the editor says it is an imitation. La Belle 
Dame Sans Merci, translated by Richard Ros (Polit. Relig. and Love 
Poems, p. 80) and the Craft of Lovers (cf. Hammond, Chaucer, A 
Bibliographical Manual, p. 420) are examples of the non-lyric d4bat 
■d'amour fitted out with a setting resembling that of the chanson 
d'aventure and probably ultimately indebted to it. (The debate be- 
tween lover and lady, MS. Sloane 1710, referred to by Padelford, Cambr. 
Hist, of Engl. Lit. II. p. 442, is a fragment of Ros's La Belle Dame, 
comprising strophes 13-18, 25-96 of FurnivaH's text.) 

«A 23. 



58 THE CHANSON D'AVENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

I hard lately to a ladye 
A lover say ... ; 46 

also in a scrap of song raised from the semi-popular level 
by some Tndor " master of music." 47 

The amorous pastime of a rustic group, which is presented 
in the French pastourelle objective, furnishes the theme for 
no Middle English chanson d'aventure, but the probability 
that such adventure-songs were current in fifteenth century 
England is suggested not only by the several religious and 
other adaptations of that period, presenting shepherds or 
other rustics in converse, but also by an Elizabethan chanson 
d'aventure that presents the type in unmistakably English 
form; the nut-brown milk-maids are interested not alone in 
their lovers, but also in their maypoles and their May 
queen. 48 

The English nightingale, like the rossignol, sings for the 
delight or solace of the English poet-lovers. Sometimes her 

46 A 15. In 15 and 23 the tendency to equal apportionment of dia- 
logue, such as characterizes the formal debat, is evident; 15 is com- 
parable in succinctness to the ballade of G. de Lannoy, Bom. xxxix. 
p. 357. 

" A 25. 

4S Ms. Harl. 4286, f. 62 b; the poem occurs together with several by 
the Earl of Oxford. 

1 As I me walked hard by a riueers side hey no no 

to cuntry milck maydes I chanced to espye hey no no 

2 The on wase as fayre as fare might be 

the other wase of nut browne with a rowling eye 

3 much talcke ther passed them betwene 

of ther cuntry may poles and of ther sommerry queene 

4 ther petecotes of scarlet ther wascotes of red 

with milck white aprones and strawne hates on ther heades 

5 Long poyntes with siluer tages aboute her armes thay wore 
[?Grea]te ringes with poses more youris then my owne 

6 And to requite ther poyntes and ther ringes 

thay gaue ther louers garlandes with many tricksy thinges 

7 thus thay did passe the longe sommeres daye 

thaye tocke ther nut broune milck paks [ ? pails] and so they went 
ther way 



THE THEMES 59 

song retains a joyous note of springtime, " soo fresch, soo 
gay/' as in the famous Tudor ditty: 

She sayd wynter was past, hey how ! 

Than dyry cum dawn dyry cum dyry cum dyry 

Cum dyry cum dyry cum dawn, hey how ! 49 

But her tastes and training are not altogether of the green- 
wood. With the traditional thorn under her heart " to kepe 
hur fro slepe," she sings a song 50 calling on young lovers 
to awake ; the words with which she addresses the lover in an 
alluring fragment advise him, we may suppose, to love loyally 
in hope of better speed: 

I haue loued so many a day, ligthly spedde hot better I may 
bis ender day wen me was wo under a bugh per I lay 
Night gale to mene me to . . . 51 

In a more elaborate lyric, 52 composed not long after Chau- 
cer's Parlement of Foules, and devoid of popular elements, 
the woe-begone poet overhears the nightingale and many 
other songsters joining in an antiphonal chorus to give praise 
to loyal love, and also to defend it against the attacks made 
by cuckoo, pie, fieldfare and jay. Each bird in his allotted 
strophe expounds his views of love or tells of his own lan- 
guishing; each — with the exception of starling, fieldfare, 
and cuckoo, the latter of whom announces, " I can no f rench " 



ffl A7. Cf. Morley's Madrigals, 1594 (ed. Bolle, Palaestra, xxix. p. 
75 ) : " On a f aire morning, as I came by the way " ; a wanton spirit 
of revolt and the hint of woman's dominance are suggestive of the 
primitive chanson de printemps. It is doubtful whether the more 
important figure is the " merry maide " or the bird. 

60 Perhaps she merely suggests the song to the poet. In either case, 
there is no trace of converse between poet and bird. 

"A 38. The fragment suggests a closer resemblance to the French 
models than do any of the other bird-songs, but the brevity precludes 
certain judgment. 

62 A 22. 



60 THE CHANSON" d'aVENTUEE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

— ends his stanza with a line borrowed from some chanson 
d' amour. 53 The throstle-cock closes the chorus in serious 
English fashion by announcing that it is " no stedef astnesse " 

In loue to turne as a bal; 

En dieu maffie sanz departer. 

Though the poem is obviously dependent on Chaucer's Parle- 
ment for much of its detail, as its editor has pointed out, 54 
it does not owe its structure to Chaucer's poem; it has no 
suggestion of a formal council, of opinions heard and weighed 
and of a decision rendered, and it relates an actual adventure 
and no dream. For the device of the formal antiphonal 
chorus doubtless it is indebted ultimately to the popular 
mediaeval tradition represented most notably by La Messe 
des Oisiaus; 55 but the English poem is a simple adventure- 
lyric, not an elaborate and allegorical vision-poem, it con- 
cerns itself solely with the responsive chorus, which is merely 
the central incident of the Messe and similar poems, and it 
is not a parody of the divine service. Structurally, in other 
words, it derives neither from Chaucer's poem nor from such 
poems as La Messe des Oisiaus; it is an adventure-lyric, 
though obviously one not derived immediately from any of 
the known French chansons d'aventure. 5Q 



53 E. g., Qui Men ayme tard oublye, the mavis's song, on which cf . Jarn- 
strom, Bee. de Chansons Pieuses, pp. 137, 141; also Paris, Chansons, no. 
53, Schick, Temple of Glas, E. E. T. S. Extra Series lx.— The genesis 
of this particular strophic form is uncertain; it has manifest affinity 
with the form of the chanson glosee (cf. Brakelmann, Herrig's Archiv, 
xliii. pp. 323, 349, notes; Jeanroy, Origines, p. 106, n. 1) and of 
vernacular poems in which each stanza ends with a Latin cauda (cf. 
Thurau, Der Refrain, pp. 277 f.; also R 11, 24; D 9, 30, etc.). 

54 Cf. also Skeat, Oxford Chaucer, I. p. 55. 

55 Scheler, Dits et Contes, ni. pp. 1 ff . ; cf . Neilson, Court of Love, pp. 
67 ff., 225 f. 

66 Cf. England's Helicon, ed. Grosart, 1812, p. 233, for a song (not an 
adventure-song) reminiscent in theme and form of this later Parlia- 
ment. 



THE THEMES 61 

The pastourelles, which are extremely abundant in France, 
form a small minority among the English songs of love 
adventure, 57 — a fact that is not surprising to one who has 
noted in the English chansons dramatiques the author's dis- 
inclination towards a prominent role and his failure to bring 
out a piquant contrast between his station and that of the 
" litel mai " whose plaint he overhears. But in spite of 
its infrequency, the pastourelle is perhaps the most promi- 
nent type of English adventure-song, not only because of 
the important place that it fills among the texts written down 
about 1300, 58 but also because of the strikingly dramatic 
character of the action involved. This action is, indeed, in 
general a repetition of that presented in the French pastou- 
relles. The poet listens to the maiden's song, 59 which is at 
times her love-lament, and salutes and questions her ; 60 he 
offers his love as abruptly as does the impertinent trouvere, 
and seeks to win her by similar arguments and promises. 61 
At his approach the maiden is sometimes pleased, sometimes 

57 There are but nine pastourelles, normal or modified, that reach a 
definite denouement (A 4, 5, 10, 14, 16, 24, 29, 36, 41) and four that 
are undeveloped (A 1, 28, 30, 35). Several well-known Tudor songs 
preserve the typical pastourelle dialogue without the form of the chan- 
son d'aventure : " Hey, troly loly lo " and " Come over the woodes " 
(Chambers and Sidgwick, pp. 62, 64); also "When that byrdes be 
brought to rest" (Anglia, xxxi. p. 380) and "Ane fare sweit may of 
mony one" (Pinkerton, Anc. Scot. Poems, p. 190), both of which have 
reminiscences of the nature-setting. 

58 A 4, 16, 30 are texts of the early fourteenth century; this early 
development is presaged by the Anglo-Norman pastourelle of the 
thirteenth (cf. above, Ch. i. § B, n. 106). 

68 A 5, 29, 36. He may devote a word or two to her beauty, A 4, 10, 
16, 24, etc. 

60 He salutes her, A 4 (in Christ's name), 24; he bids or causes her to 
" abide," A 4, 10, 14; he questions her, A 16 (who she is), 36 (why she 
comes alone). 

61 He flatters her (A 4, 16), assures her of his sincerity (24, 36, 41), 
promises to observe secrecy (10, 14), prays for pity (1, 36), compares 
himself with other possible lovers (16, 36), and offers her clothes (16), 
ring and purse (41), high place (29). 



62 THE CHANSON d'a VENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

afraid, sometimes angry. 62 She refuses his love with genu- 
ine indignation: 

She bar me fast on hond pat I began to raue 
And bad me fond fer]?er a fol for to fech. 



' pu findis hir nout hire pe sot pat pu sech. 

It is no mister your word forto wast; 

Wend fort per ye wenin better for to spede ; ' 6S 

or through fear lest he will soon tire of her and leave her to 
be shamed, or lest her " dame " will punish her. 64 She 
usually succeeds in discomfiting the presumptuous intruder, 65 
or yields only against her will, burning with anger when her 
quiet request for amends is scoffingly refused ; 66 but occa- 
sionally — though examples are found only in the Scotch 
poems — the heroine is as manifestly insincere in her tempo- 
rary resistance as are most of the coy bergerettesP The 
denouement typical of the French pastourelles, when pre- 
sented, 68 equals in explicitness its least admirable models. 
The lover usually accepts defeat or success in silence, but in 
late instances he is mocking or rebellious. 69 

In spite of the evident French genesis of these pastourelles, 

62 Cf. A 4, 14, 10, etc. 

•""A 4; cf. A 36, 41. Compare the French: certes fole seroie, vostre 
parole gastez, ales vostre voie, etc. 

64 A 16, 41. She argues that she is too mean a maid in the ballad, 
A 29; that she is faithful to her lover (A 29 and possibly 14; cf. 11. 
18-21). 

65 A 4, 14, 16. 

68 A 41. 

67 A 10, 24. 

68 A 24 (Scotch), 41 (minstrel-ballad). 

69 A 41, 14. But the phrases with which the " Jacke " of 41 sets aside 
the girl's request are a ballad commonplace (cf. Child, Ballads, I. pp. 
444, 446), and not an echo of the trouv&re's mockery. 



THE THEMES 63 

none of them so faithfully repeats the foreign models as does 
the Little Maid's Lament. 70 Indeed, most of them differ 
notably with regard to the special type of lyric poetry that 
they employ. One, though a typical pastourelle as regards 
the action portrayed, disguises the maiden as a mavis, — a 
device characteristic of the Tudor love-lyric. 71 The Murn- 
ing Maidin 72 is influenced by the outlaw ballads ; the girl, 
clad in green to glad the May, explains — 

Thus man I bow and arrowis beir 
Becaus I am ane baueist wycht, 

and promises that while she is " under the levis grene " she 
will " no wyld beist wait with wrang." The Crow and the 
Pie 73 is a minstrel-ballad wholly devoted to the ; 



70 A 4 and 16, both c. 1310, most clearly show traces of direct French 
influence, in spite of their different tenor; 10 and 24, both late Scotch, 
are closer than any of the others to the French pastourelles in realism 
and vivacity. 

71 A 14. Cf. "The lytyll prety nyvtyngale" (Anglia, XII. p. 263; 
cf . other songs using the phrase, " ye wot not whome I mene " : ibid., 
p. 260; MS. Ashmole 176, scec. xvi. f. 100) : the poems on "Robin redde- 
brest " and the " whyte " in The Forrest of Fancy, by H. C, 1579 
(Corser, Collectanea, pt. in. Chetham Soc. lxxi. pp. 217 ff.) : also 
" Sore this dere strykyn ys " (Anglia, XII. p. 238) and a similar chanson 
d'aventure, probably scec. xvi. end, of which a modern transcript occurs 
in ms. Addit. 25478 : " Yt was my chance for to advance myself not 
long agoe." Possibly the identification of heroine and mavis is a 
confusion arising from the fact that the mavis is mentioned in the first 
four lines, which may, in some earlier form, have represented the burden 
sung by a maiden, the true heroine; compare the four lines in question: 

Hay how the mavys 
on a brere 
she satt and sang 
\fith notes clere 

with the lines contained in a medley in Constable's MS. Cantus, scec. 
xvn (cf. Chambers, The Scottish Songs, i. p. xxxvi) : "The mavis on 
a tree she sat | Sing with notes clear." 

72 A 36. 

73 A 41. 



64 THE CHANSON d'aVENTUKE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

theme. Christopher White and John of Hazelgreen 74 are 
ballads in which the setting and situation peculiar to the 
pastourelle have been taken as point of departure; in the 
former a true pastourelle, growing out of the lament of a 
" well faire mayd," gives opportunity for a long sequel relat- 
ing events occurring after " monthes two or three," and in 
the latter the intruding poet presents his plea, not for him- 
self, but for his eldest son, who in the closing stanzas proves 
to be the very lover for whom the lady fair is letting the tears 
down fall. 75 Obviously these poems belong among the native 
ballads, but no less obviously the situation with which they 
open has come by some devious path from the pastourelle 
of mediaeval France. The song beginning, " As I came by 
a bowre soo f ayr " is in substance a pastourelle, though un- 
developed beyond the poet's plea for favour, which is couched 
in courtly terms ; the poet is " taken a prysoner," languishes, 
sleepless, in love's chains, and dares ask for no more than 
" some almes dede for owr ladyes sake." 76 Similarly, the 
song from Forbes's Cantus resolves itself after the encounter 
with the " may both fair and gay " into the pleading of the 
poet, her lover, who is " banisht through false report." " 
Tayis Bank, like the early undeveloped pastourelle of the 
rider by Eybbesdale, 78 is devoted completely after the record 

74 A 5, 29. For details characteristic of the pastourelle, cf. in 5, 11. 5, 
10, 15, 21 ff.; in 29 (Text A), 11. 6, 9-10, 33-34, 36, 38-41, 51 ff. In 
5, 29, and 41 the poet soon conies to speak of himself in the third 
person, as occasionally the trouvdre does. 

75 Cf. the Old French pastourelle that ends with a lovers' meeting, 
Bartsch, II. 63. 

76 A 1. The trouvdre speaks of himself as the prisoner of love, pre- 
sumably referring to his devotion to some great lady, certainly not to 
his sudden fancy for Marot (Bartsch, n. 35). 

77 A 28. The existing copy (scee. xvrr) must represent an older 
text, since a religious adaptation exists in B 23, scec. xvi. first half. — 
A chevalier complains likewise of the faus losengier, Bartsch, I. 61. 

78 A 35, like A 30 (e. 1310). The poet's caution in A 35 is explicable if 
the Mergrit of his song is really the daughter of the Drummonds of 
Perth, beloved by James IV., as has been supposed (cf. Laing, Early 
Pop. Poetry, note, i. pp. 169-171). 



THE THEMES 65 

of the maiden's appearance to a glowing description of her 
beauty; the poet does not tell his sudden love. For these 
restrained variations of the usual pastourelle there is practi- 
cally no French precedent. 79 

In spirit, too, the English and Scotch pastourelles show 
certain differences from their foreign prototypes, which mark 
them as the productions of poets more interested in the 
human emotions, or even the moral issues, involved in their 
narratives, than in the narrative itself, and in a denouement 
contrived to flatter their self-importance. In the first place 
there is practically nothing to suggest, much less to empha- 
size, class distinction between the maiden and her chance 
wooer. 80 The former is never a shepherdess, and though 
she is usually a creature of field or meadow, and by implica- 
tion of less wealth than her suitor, yet she is apparently of 
no lower social rank, and is usually possessed of a dignity 
and independence that raise her perceptibly above the level 
of the pastoure who half-invites, half-resists and lightly 
yields; in one of the earliest songs 81 she comes clad in fur 
and " riche riban gold begon," and as she walks through the 
meadow she keeps her eyes fast upon her book, — a strange 
proceeding for a descendent of the chaplet-weaving shep- 
herdess. The lover is a mounted cavalier in only a few 
instances, 82 and in one case the significance of his riding is 
entirely destroyed by the fact that the Gill whom he meets 
likewise " comes rydyng; " 83 if this Grill addresses him once 
as " corteor," she adds in the same breath, " pluke vp jour 
helys, I yow beshrew," and scorns him with the titles " Hew," 

79 Cf. Bartsch, I. 52, n. 63. 

80 Except in the ballads A 5, 29. There is a stronger impression of 
class distinction in the songs " Hey, troly loly lo " and " Come over the 
woodes " noted above, note 44; but the lovers here are no true 
courtiers. The poet- lover and lady are both of some rank in A 1, 35. 

81 A 4. 

82 A 29, 30, 41; possibly 35 (cf. "ran I" and "I red"). 

83 A 41. 



DO THE CHANSON D A VENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

and " Jenken," and " knave." Moreover, as has been noted, 
the girl's resistance is likely to be sincere and based on moral 
grounds unknown to the b& 



Betere is were J?unne boute laste 

J?en syde robes ant synke in to synne. 84 

The only examples of her coy refusal occur in late Scotch 
poems, and of her unheeded denial in minstrel-ballads. 
The yielding of the " murning maidin," though voluntary, 
is to a plea such as no chevalier offers : 

Than knelit I befoir that cleir 
And meiklie could hir mercie craif ; 
That semelie than, with sobir cheir, 
Me of hir gudlines forgaif. 

It wes no neid, I wys, 

To bid us uther kys; 
Thair mycht no hairts mair joy resaif, 
Nor ather culd of uther haif : 
Thus brocht wer we to blys. 85 

Finally, the traditional gross ending is usually avoided, — 
though two Scotch examples and the ballad of Crow and Pie 
offer exceptions, — or is handled with reserve; the undevel- 
oped pastourelles eliminate all the action, or all that regu- 
larly follows the poet's first proffer of devotion. Thus the 
" sage and serious " English poets have delivered the pastou- 
relle from much of its aristocratic bias ; they have made it 
seem less like a bit of conventional pretense offered for the 
amusement of a courtly singer and his courtly audience, and 
have given it more of the sincerity that marks the popular 
ballad. They have invested it, too, with dignity and reserve. 
But they have robbed it of its rapid, almost tumultous, 

54 A 16; the only comparable passage in the French chansons (Bartsch, 
III. 1) is not concerned at all with the idea of the sin involved. 
85 A 36. 



THE THEMES 67 

movement, and likewise of its only other boast, its light and 
artificial grace. One feels that the poets with sober moral 
strain might have done better to direct their energies 
elsewhere, leaving the French cavalier and shepherdess 
undisturbed in their world of make-believe. 

The love-laments uttered by the wandering poets are only 
nominally chansons d'aventure. They have adopted the set- 
ting in regular or modified form: 

Not far fro marche in the ende of feueryere 
Allon I went vpon myn awn dysport, 86 



As I stoode in studyinge alloone 

By myself bemenyng my moone. 87 

They maintain the semblance of an actual adventure-poem; 
the author tells that he " gan to vnfolde " his woe to him- 
self 88 or to the figure that appears to question him, the 
" myghti gret goddes " of love, or his own hope in human 
form. 89 But, concerned as they are solely with the poet's 
own feeling, they are properly foreign to the objective songs 
of adventure. They are imitations 90 of the courtly poems 
of Charles d' Orleans and his school, which have borrowed 
only the opening formula of the chanson d'aventure. 

88 A 32. (Possibly the poet's grievance is political; cf. note on A 32 
in Appendix B. ) 

87 A 3. 

8 A3, 32, 46. In A 21 the pretense of an actual time and setting is 
dropped, but resumed vaguely in the closing line. 

89 A 26, 3. 

90 A 26 is a literal translation of a poem by Charles d'Orleans (the 
single known case of direct translation in A, and indeed, except for 
K, 12, in any of the four groups). A 26, 32, 46 are attributed by Pro- 
fessor MacCracken to the Duke of Suffolk, the friend of Charles. 
d'Orleans (cf. A 26, Appendix B). 



THE CHANSON D AVENTUEE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 



B. Religious 

Religious chansons d'aventure appear in England as early 
as their earliest amorous counterparts. They are as nu- 
merous in the fourteenth century as the songs of love- 
adventure, and twice as numerous in the fifteenth, when 
they find a place among the ponderous products of the 
Lydgatians as well as among the bright carols; but after 
1500 they are decidedly outnumbered by the love-lyrics. 

The forms that are proper to the amorous chanson dra- 
matique are reproduced among the religious chansons d'aven- 
ture; the monologue of a maiden or a man, the dialogue, the 
conversation of a group, and the chorus of birds are over- 
heard by an unobtrusive poet. The only forms, in fact, that 
do not appear in religious revision are the lament of the 
maid as yet unloved and of the femme mal mariee, — the 
latter especially being a form that does not readily lend itself 
to religious adaptation, 1 Among the monologues those of 
Mary are more numerous than those of her Son; and among 
them all there is but one by a singer " withowt dystresse, in 
grete lyghtnesse." This is a carol which has apparently 
been suggested by some secular song like that of Besse 
" makyng her mone " in the wilderness because she is " goten 
with child": 2 

Under a tre, in sportyng me 

Alone by a wod syd, 
I hard a mayd that swetly sayd, 

I am with chyld this tyd. 3 

But her song proves to be of " rejoycyng " : 



1 CI, however, the theme allegorized by a French clerk, laboring prava 
in bonum ewponere, who explains that the dame maul mariSe is the 
soul, bound to sin, and that the Saviour calls it to his love. (A. Leeoy 
de la Marche, La Chaire Francaise au Moyen Age, 1868, pp. 186 f.) 

2 A 27; cf. A 43. 3 R 26. ' 



THE THEMES QP 

Gracyusly conceyvyd have I 
The son of God so swete; 

and its burden is a happy " nowel." 4 

The laments of Mary and Christ in chanson d'aventure 
form 5 are the results of a somewhat different process of 
adaptation ; they are with a single exception 6 formal planc- 
tus, such as might exist (and in fact in two cases 7 do exist) 
independent of the framework ; each has been fitted out with 
a preface borrowed either from some amorous chanson 
d'aventure or from some religious poem that has already 
adopted such a preface. 8 Thus a planctus Mariae in un- 
broken monologue form constitutes the body of the poem 
beginning : 

In a chyrch as I gan knelle 
Thys endres dey fore to here messe, 
I saw a sy^ht me lykyd welle; 



I saw a pyte in a place. 9 



The planctus Christi are monologues interrupted only by the 
poet's sympathetic question: 

I askide whi he had peynynge, 
He seide ' quia amove 1-nM.an^.n ' • 10 



4 In some of its phrasing, as in its burden, it connects itself with the 
lullaby-carols; cf. 11. 15-16 ("With my derlyng, lullay to syng | And 
lovely hym to roke") 11, 20, 21, etc. 

5 R 1, 11, 18 (Mary); 19, 24 (Christ). 

6 R 1. 

J Cf. R 18 in Appendix B; also R 24. 

8 R 11 and 19 (beginning respectively, "As resoun rewlid my richelees 
mynde" and "In a valey of J>is restles mynde") seem to be making 
independent use of a formula already established for prefaces to 
spiritualized adventure-songs. Cf. also R 18 (c. 1500) which employs 
almost the same modification of the usual formula as D 22 a (c. 1370). 

9 R 18. 

10 R 19. The phraseology of the planctus owes much to the Song of 



70 THE CHANSON d'aVENTTJKE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

or by his abrupt adoption of the role of interpreter : 
Criste on a crosse I sawe hangyng, 



To man he cried and sayde, 'Alas! 
Why art ]?ou, man, vnkynde to me? 
And now I dye to geve J?e grace. 
Quid vltra debui facere f ' 

Criste Ihesu J?ies wordes may saye 
To euery creature pat is vnkynde : 
' What shulde I more, man, I ]?e praye ? ' 11 

The well-known Mary-lament on the theme, Filius regis mor- 
tuus est 12 is likewise, in two versions, a monologue, not 
interrupted even by the poet's question; in a third it is 
answered, in the poet's hearing, by a " voice from heue/fc " 
announcing, " ffilius Regis is alyve et non mortuus est " ; in 
a fourth it forms the basis for a dramatic scene in which the 
poet plays the consoler, informer, questioner, and expositor, 
going at Mary's bidding to worship at the Cross, meeting 
three women and " angelis with gret lithe," returning to the 
mourning mother with the tidings, Resurrexit ! non mortuus 
est, and finally explaining to his readers why it was neces- 
sary that the King's Son should die. The traditional carol, 
" All under the leaves and the leaves of life," 13 has the 
appearance of being a popular echo of some such elaborate 
planctus. The poet meets Mary, one of seven virgins, and 
on learning that she seeks her Son, he bids her go down to 



Solomon (cf. Furnivall's side notes, Polit. Relig. and Love Poems, pp. 
181 ff.). — For Quia Amove Langueo {Cant. Cant. II. 5 and V. 8) taken 
as a text, cf. The Form of Perfect Living, ed. Horstmann, Richard 
Rolle of Ham-pole, London, 1895, I. p. 29. 

u R 24. — For Quid Vltra Debui Facere as the text of a sermon in 
verse, cf. MS. Ashmole 189, Pt. n. f. 104 {scec. xv) ; there are some 
parallels with R 24, but the poem is not a planctus. 

12 R 11. 13 R 1. 



THE THEMES 71 

yonder town and behold sweet Jesus Christ nailed to a yew 
tree. Mary goes, weeps at the foot of the Cross, and is com- 
forted by her Son. In such poems as the last two the poet 
necessarily maintains, more or less consistently, the part of 
adventurer; but in the simpler forms he abandons it the 
moment that Mary or Christ begins to utter the planctus 
proper. He makes use, too, of an abbreviated preface that 
contains little suggestion of an actual, human encounter; in 
only one instance — Christ's Quia Amove Langueo — do traces 
of the usual preliminary action remain: 

In a valey of J?is restles mynde 

I solvate in mounteyne and in myde 

Trustynge a trewe loue for to fynde. 

Vpon an hil J?an y took hede ; 

A voice y herde — and neer y ^ede — 

In huge dolour complayny/ige \>o, 

' Se, dere soule, how my sidis blede, 

Quia amove langueo/ 

Vpon J?is hil y fond a tree; 
Vndir be tree a man sittynge. 
From heed to foot wouwdid was he, 
His herte blood y si^ bledinge : — 
A semeli man to ben a king, 
A graciouse face to loken vnto; 
I askide whi he had peynynge. 14 

14 E. 19. — Certain other planctus may be mentioned here because they 
are set into a narrative framework; they differ from the chanson 
d'aventure proper by virtue of the vision element. Cf. the Quia Amove 
Langueo of Mary (Polit. Relig. and Love Poems, p. 177) of which R 19 
is probably a kind of continuation (cf. note, p. 180, and also the fact 
that a comparison of this text and those of Harl. 1706 and Douce 322, 
both scbc. xv, proves that the three must have a common source) ; 
" Who cannot wepe," Hymns to V. and C. p. 126 ; " My feerful dreme," 
Herrig's Archiv, cvi. p. 64. — The carol beginning, " I hard a maydyn 
wepe I ffor here sonnys passyon " (MS. Cambr. Ee. 1. 12, scee. xv. f. 1 b) 
is a dramatic narrative of the Passion; the maiden does not appear 



72 



THE CHANSON D AVENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 



The dialogues between Mary and Christ take the form of 
carols, divine lullabies. 15 One, occurring in a song-book 
of the early sixteenth century, represents an incomplete 
transformation of a maiden's love-lament into a religious 
lullaby-song, as the setting and the incongruous burden 
testify : 

Alone, alone, alone, alone 

Alone, alone, alone. 

Here I sytt alone, alas, alone. 

As I me walkyd this endurs day 

To the grene wode for to play 

and all heuyness to put away 

myselfe alone 

As I walkyd vndir the grene wode bowe 

I sawe a maide fayre I now 

a childe she hoppid she song she lough 
\>at childe wepid alone. 16 

It is not till this point, half-way through the song, that the 
dialogue of the usual lullaby type begins, proving that this 
child is the One born " to save mankind." The other lyrics 
of this class show no traces of such metamorphosis. They 
retain a maiden as their foremost figure, it is true, and they 
are embellished with prefatory lines familiarized to their 
composers through many an adventure-song, secular or 
religious : 

As I up ros in a mornyng 

My thowth was on a mayd ^yng 

That song aslep with hyr lullyng 
Her swet son, owr Savowr ; 17 



after 1. 1. (The lines are formulary; ci. their use as burden in a similar 
poem, Dyboski, Ball. MS. 35 4, p. 41 ; cf. also " I saw my lady weep- 
(ing)," Arber, An English Garner, in. p. 41, iv. p. 522.) 

15 R 5, 6, 7; R 1 ("All under the leaves") mentioned in connection 
with the planctus, introduces conversation between Mary and her cru- 
cified Son. 

16 R 6. " R 5. 



THE THEMES 73 

but they are genuine sacred carols, as the plaintive words 
of the babe attest: 

' Syng now, moder ! ' sayd J?e child, 
'What schal me beffalle 
Aftur wen I come til eld, 
ftbr so done moders all.' 18 

The Trench adventure-song introducing a pastoral group 
finds counterpart in some sixteenth century carols in which 
the poet rides out to hear the " terli terlow " of three holy 
shepherds, or their cries of wonder at the heavenly chorus, 
Veritas de terra orta est, and follows their star-guided way 
to " Bethlem " ; 19 in an earlier song of more didactic strain 
the narrator finds a bright woman in an arbour singing Ver- 
bum caro factum est, and learns the meaning of the words 
from her and from three shepherds and three kings whom 
he meets " ferpere more in pat fryth." 20 A very different 
group greets the poet of a winsome carol as he passes by a 
chapel; 21 for there he sees Our Lord, carrying a chalice of 
rich red gold to the service, while St. Thomas rings the bells 
and St. George tends the fair tapers. To the adventure- 



18 R 7. For dialogues similarly introduced, but with a stronger sug- 
gestion of the vision, cf. the lullabies beginning, " This endris night I 
saw a sight" (Chambers and Sidgwick, pp. 119, 121, Herrig's Archiv, 
CVi. p. 60), also one of which a very poor text exists in MS. Harl. 
2380 (scec. xv. late), f. 70 b ("bis endres nyght About mydayght [sic] 
As I me lay for to sclepe"). — In many carols only the element of the 
poet's presence survives ; cf . " I saw a f ayr maydyn syttyn and synge," 
Chambers and Sidgwick, p. 131; cf. also Eickert, Carols, p. 59; Dy- 
boski, Ball. MS. 354, pp. 21, 23, Sylvester, Christmas Carols, p. 41, etc. — 
A vision poem, scec. xv. (ms. Harl. 2255, f. 150 b) presents a dialogue 
between Christ and Mary, who has been translated to heaven, and 
who is lauded by celestial choirs singing Benedicta sit sancta Trinitas, 
which forms the refrain line. The poem begins, " Undir a park ful 
prudently pyght." 

19 R 8, 3. — "I heard a mess of merry shepherds sing" (Rickert, 
Carols, p. 109) is comparable. 

20 R 10. 2a R 2. 



74 THE CHANSON d'aVENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

carols of this type the traditional ballad of The Carnal and 
the Crane 22 belongs by virtue of its substance, in spite of 
the fact that the speakers are not shepherds ; the crane " in 
argument " tells the carnal of a Child whose cradle was soft- 
ened not with silken sheets but with provender rejected by 
asses, and whose sacred life King Herod sought in vain. 

The only one of these lyrics that suggests even remotely 
an amorous original is the Verbum Caro Factum Est, which 
opens in the manner of secular song: 

I passud thorow a garden grene 
I fond a herbere made full newe 
A semelyor syght I haff noght sene 

ylke tree sange a tyrtull trew 
Theryn a maydon bryght off hew 

And euer sche sange and neuer sche sesest, 

but which continues in the fashion adopted by the English 
moralists from the inquisitive strolling lovers : 

1 askud that mayden what sche mentt 
Sche bad me byde and I sclrald here 
What sche sayd I toke gude tent 

In hyr songe had sche voice full clere. 

Among the religious chansons dramatiques the nightingale 
is found warbling of the risen Christ just as she has sung in 
the love-lyrics of young lovers and the May. It is not at all 
remarkable that birds should be represented as singing on 
sacred themes; the secular poet himself listens to the lark 
as it chante et loie son signor. 23 The pious clerks were per- 
haps especially impelled to compose divine avian choruses 
by their desire to counteract the excessive praise of earthly 
love commonly attributed to the songsters, — the protest at 
the close of the birds' Parliament of Love furnishes a case 

» R 9. 2B Bartsch, I. 30 a. 



THE THEMES 75 

in point, — 24 and, above all, to reclaim for the glory of God 
the phrases of hymn or liturgy which were being debased 
in amorous parodies sung by birds. 25 However this may be, 
they prefer for their bird-choruses the form either of a 
sacred antiphonal service or of an estrif in which the love of 
God is magnified at the expense of earthly love. In the pseu- 
do-Lydgatian Devotions of the Fowls 26 and in a sixteenth 
century poem in Skelton's vein, The Armonye of Byrdes, 27 
the poet goes abroad in a scene of vernal " vyridite " and 
hears birds singing a responsive service in praise of the 
Deity; the song of each bird is composed in part of phrases 
taken from Latin hymns or from the Latin liturgy. The 
Armonye is the work of a sophisticated poet, as its intro- 
duction bears witness: 



24 Cf . Philomela, by Peekham ( ? ) , in Bona Ventura's works, ed. Ad 
Claras Aquas (Quaracchi), 1882-98, vni. pp. 669-74; Rossignol mes- 
sager, Herrig's Archiv, cxi. p. 123; a sermon, MS. Harl. 2339, f. 72 b, 
on the theme, "how ech maw and womman may lerne to loue and 
serue god ech in his degree, takywge ensaumple bi bre foolis .... 
bat clerkis callen foulis of loue. be larke. be nyityngale. and be turtil- 
dowue is be bridde." The exempla follow. The lark flies heavenward 
at dawn singing of her gratitude to God; the nightingale sings ever, 
with a thorn against his breast " to make him pat he slepe not " ; the 
turtle dove, when she once chooses her mate, will never have another, 
" and whanne he is deed from hire ; sche morneb euer." With such 
devotion as these birds display " lordis and ladies schuldeji lerne also 
to loue god." 

25 Cf. Neilson, Court of Love, pp. 220 ff. 

26 R 4. 

21 R 27. The two poems are differentiated from La Messe des Oisiaus 
and the Matins (Neilson, Court of Love, pp. 225 ff., 216 ff.), by their 
simpler structure and by the complete absence of parody or of adherence 
to the regular order of divine service — the basis for Professor Neilson's 
doubt as to the genuine devoutness of the two poems (p. 227) not being 
clear. R 4 and 27 probably represent a common original; the five 
birds in the Devotions appear, with many others, in the Armonye; the 
pelican (in both) figures neither in La Messe nor in the Matins. 
Plainly R 27 does not derive directly from R 4, and neither derives 
directly from such poems as La Messe. 



76 THE CHANSON d'aVENTUKE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

Whan Dame Flora 
In die aurora 

Had covered the meadow with flowers, 
And all the fylde 
Was over distylde 

With lusty Aprell showers; 
For my disporte 
Me to conforte 

Whan the day began to spring, 
Foorth I went 
With a good intent 

To here the byrdes sing; 

but its simpler phrasing and its tripping metre mark it 
as in closer touch with popular poetry than the pedantic 
Devotions: 

As I me lenyd unto a joyful place 
Lusty Phebus to supervide 



... I herd a voyce celestialle, 
Eejoysyng my spirites inwardly, 
Of dyverse foules. 

In Dunbar's Merle and Nightingale, beginning: 

In May as that Aurora did vpspring 
With cristall ene chasing the cluddis sable 
I hard a merle with mirry notis sing 
A sang of lufe . . . 28 



28 R 20. The burden of the merle's song is " A lusty lyfe in luves 
scheruice bene." — The poem is undoubtedly in the tradition of the Owl 
and Nightingale, Thrush and Nightingale, etc., — a tradition presuma- 
bly Middle-Latin or French or Provencal in origin (cf. Wells, The Owl 
and the Nightingale, Boston, 1907, pp. liiiff. ; Gadow, Das Mittelengl. 
Streitgedicht Eule u. Nachtigall, Palaestra, lxv. pp. 14 ff.) ; but its 
simple lyric form and the details of its prelude betray the influence of 
the chanson d'aventure tradition, with which Dunbar was familiar. 
In this connection, it may be noted that the elaborate " contention- 



THE THEMES 77 

the nightingale prevails upon his antagonist to join him in 
his song, " All hive is lost bot vpone God allone." The 
simpler form of bird-song in praise of the Creator occurs 
only in the sixteenth century effort of a would-be caroller 
who tells of going forth to hear the birds conspiring with 
trees, flowers, beasts, and fishes, " to make hus mery," and 
ends his poor Spring-song with an appeal that we worship 
the Giver of all this gladness. 29 Clearly, all the poems of 
this group owe their structure in part to the tradition 
established by the corresponding group of secular chansons 
d'aventure in France ; but though Dunbar's poem and the 
Armonye contain suggestions of secular ancestry, none bears 
any evidence of direct relationship to any secular song. 
When the poet of a chanson d'aventure offers his devotion 

poems " in the Latin, French, and Provencal, possessing a narrative 
introduction and sometimes presenting birds, — cf. Melior et Idoine, 
Rom. xv. pp. 332-34, Geste de Blancheflour et Florence, Langlois, Ori- 
gines et Sources du Roman de la Rose, pp. 14-15, — have been influenced 
by the more popular lyrics of adventure, especially such as present 
birds singing each on lour latin, Bartsch, I. 30 a; cf. for instance the 
phrasing in Melior et Idoine, 11. 13-18: 

Eu tens de may, ceux longe jours, 
Chauntent oyseaus e creissent flours, 
Par un matin m'en levoi, 
Si mountoy mon palefroi 
E aloi vers une cite" 
Qe Nincol est appele*e. 

29 K 22. A popular vision-poem (scec. xvi) beginning, "After myd- 
nyght, when dremes dothe f awll " (Wright, Songs and Ball. E,oxb. Club, 
p. 32, Halliwell, Wit and Science, Shak. Soc. p. 89, Collier, Extracts 
from Stationers' Registers, Shak. Soc. I. p. 186; transcribed in MS. 
Addit. 25478, scec. xrx), utters a similar appeal, making apparently 
deliberate use of the phraseology of the popular adventure-lyrics as a 
means of protest against those very lyrics (somewhat in the manner of 
Gautier de Coincy) : 

And se thow walk among thes flowres 
Not for to pastime, jest, and play, 
But reverently pressyng thy powres. 



78 THE CHANSON d' A VENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH, 

to Mary or to Christ, and implores mercy, he is approaching 
as near as he can to the pastourelle. In a few poems stand- 
ing midway between the chanson dramatique and the pas- 
tourelle he is moved to the expression of his own feeling by 
an encounter with some object other than that of his adora- 
tion; a poet of the late fourteenth century hears at evensong 
" a Eeson . . . writen with wordes (?re," which leads him 
to exposition of its meaning and to prayer ; 30 Hoccleve in his 
Balade translatee au commandement de mon Meistre Robert 
Chichele 31 prays to Mary and to Christ after seeing " a 
crois depeynted with a fair ymage " ; Lydgate owes his in- 
spiration for his " balladys " on the " gladnessys " and 
" hevynessys " of the Virgin 32 to his chance unclosing of a 
volume bearing " an ymage ful notable " of Mary, " lyke a 
pyte." Obviously these poems are the result of " dilligent 
and cleer inspeccioun " more than of emotion ; in their ten- 
dency to explain the encountered symbol or inscription they 
stand very close to the purely didactic chanson d'aventure. 
The pastourelles inspired by a meeting with Mary or 
Christ, or by the thought of one or the other of them, are 
more truly lyric. In only one of these religious pastour- 
elles — a fifteenth century minstrel-song — 33 does the poet 
venture actually to woo Mary as his " lemane," and then 
only when he has disguised her as a bright bird: 

By one foreste as I cone ryde 
I saw a byrd by a woode syde, 
Bry^te sche was of ble. 

30 R 21. 

31 R 12. The identical " balade " translated by Hoccleve I am able 
to point out in a French fragment, scec. xrv. ed. P. Meyer, Rom. vin. 
pp. 3.35 f. The twenty-one lines printed by M. Meyer prove that Hoc- 
cleve is translating almost word for word, without amplifying or 
abridging, and preserving the rhyme scheme, even the actual rhyme 
words, when possible. 

32 R 14. 33 R 15. 



THE THEMES 79 

Rejoiced at her beauty, he listens to her sighing song, and 
abides " to witt of whene sche wore " ; but like the shep- 
herdess, she is afraid: 

And as sone as sche se me 
Sche toke her fly^te. 

He follows, and taking her " by the wengus " he questions 
her gently, whereupon he is rebuked in words unmistakably 
patterned directly or indirectly on those of the resisting 
heroine of some pastourelle: 

I hasked the byrd of her wylle; 



The byrd answerd and sayd, — Do way! 

Me lykes no3te of thy play, 

Ne talkyng of thy talys : 

I am known undere thys tre, 

So as I come, let me fle. 

The bird begins to lament the loss of her former cage, but 
the poet is as ready with promises as ever was the trouvere: 

Nay dere byrd, let be thy care, 
And thou woldus gladly with me fare 
And leve one my talkynge; 



Thy cage shal be made anewe. 

" What should my cage be, should I love you ? " queries the 
bird, open to persuasion, like the bergerette. The poet 
begins to describe it, its floor of " argentum, clene sylver," 
and its posts of cypress, chosen by Jesus " off bale to be owre 
bote." This cage is made for the love of Mary, he explains, 
and then adds a somewhat confusing identification of the 
bird with the Trinity : 



OU THE CHANSON D A VENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

The mane that better cage make canne 
Take thys byrd to his lemane 
That is the Trinite. 

The author is undoubtedly writing with full knowledge of 
the amorous pastourelle, French or English; his strange 
poem takes its place beside the Tudor pastourelle in which 
the poet vainly pursues a woodland creature, half maid and 
half mavis. 34 

No other clerks have the temerity to address their fervent 
praise or entreaty to the holy object of their worship ; 35 they 
depend on the thought of Mary, or of " Crist sa fre " or of 
their own " folie " for a means of introduction to their songs. 
The three admirable lyrics of this class in Harleian ms. 2253 
undoubtedly owe their form and structure to French con- 
vention, but none of them betrays French influence in sub- 
stance. Indeed, these poets come " from petresbourh " and 
know the country " from catenas in to dyuelyn " ; 36 and they 
manifest a distinctively English tendency to choose dark 
autumnal settings and to think " wi£> dreri herte " of death 
and sin and suffering: 

34 A 14. In the much lovelier French lyrics in which bird and maiden 
natures are fused, the fusion is not made for the purpose either of 
disguise or of allegory (Bartsch, I. 29, 28; the latter not an adventure- 
song). 

85 In the Elizabethan period Barnabe Barnes with a happy simulation 
of naivetg feigns an actual encounter (Arber, An English Garner, v. 
p. 446) : 

Upon a holy Saintes Eve 
As I took my pilgrimage 
Wand'ring through the forest wary, 

Blest be that holy Saint! 
I met the lovely Virgin, Mary! 

But the poem is not precisely a case in point, for the Mary addressed 
as "my Saint chaste and mild" clearly betokens the poet's own dame 
sans merci; it is not a religious adaptation so much as a reversion 
from religious adaptation to the original amorous type. 

86 R 17. 



THE THEMES 81 

wel ichot, ant so]? hit ys, 
]?at in bis world nys no blys, 
bote care, serewe, & pyne. 37 

None of the three poems, moreover, bears sign of adaptation 
from love-song ; the praise of Mary in terms proper to amor- 
ous addresses, such as marks the song on the Five Joys, is a 
recognized convention of Mary-poems: 

wij? al mi lif y loue J?at may, 
he is mi solas nyht & day, 
my ioie, & eke my beste play, 
ant eke my louelongynge. 38 

With the two sixteenth century " godly ballatis " the case is 
different ; for one is the spiritualization of the " undevel- 
oped " pastourelhj " Into a mirthfull May morning " (known 
to us only in an English text later than this Scotch " par- 
ody"), and the other is presumably a similar adaptation, 
since its opening line occurs in two Scottish adventure-songs 
of the period, one amorous and one moral. 39 



C. Didactic 

The moral chansons d'aventure form a conspicuous group 
of fourteenth century poems preserved in the Vernon ms. ; 
in the fifteenth century they almost equal in number all the 
other adventure-songs, secular or religious, and they fill a 



37 R 25. M R 13. 

89 The two religious songs are R 23, which preserves not only the 
opening lines, but the rhyme-words, of the first strophe of A 28, the 
amorous original; and R 16, with 1. 1 of which ("Downe be jone Riuer 
I ran") cf. D 2b, 1. 1 and A 35, 11. 3-4, ("Be that rever ran I doun 
rycht | Vndir the ryss I red " ) . Mitchell, Gude and Godlie Ballatis, 
p. 270, comments on the parallel between R 23 and A 28, and con- 
jectures, p. 281, that R 16 is the adaptation of some secular ballad. 



82 THE CHANSON d'aVENTUKE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

modest place in the song and carol collections of the early 
sixteenth. Outwardly they are of the established order. 
They possess the regular preface, though it is patently an 
adventitious element or a meaningless survival. They in- 
corporate monologues attributed to various figures : never 
to women (though a maid's lament serves in one case as a 
brief preliminary to a bird's disquisition), 1 but to men (a 
" mane " or " wiht," " ane aigit man," a typical personage, 
a " schepperde " who betrays not a single pastoral quality, 
" ff rere Henri"), 2 to a " voyse ryght mervelus obscure," 3 
to birds (nightingale, turtle, lark, " Synderisis "), 4 and to 
" lettres " written on a wall, ring, ribbon or robe, hood, briar- 
leaf, or book. 5 They embody informal dialogues between a 
"maye " and a "turtille," a " kynd cheild " and " the nichtin- 
gall," or the poet and a bird, 6 and formal debates between 
two men (" pe synner " and " Merci ", Meed and Thank, or 
" Aige " and "^owth") ; 7 they set forth a " spekynge " of 
a company of clerks, apparently of an admirable unanimity, 
and a " Resoun " which the poet propounds in soliloquy. 8 



1 D 23. In D 3 a dream-lady figures momentarily as the bearer of 
the graven ring. 

2 Man, etc., D 7, 8, 9 c, 19, 32; old man, 1, 10, 27; Mercy, etc., 12, 
26, 31; shepherd, 5; friar, 11 (cf. 22, 25; cf. also an incomplete song 
which presumably once possessed the preface characteristic of the 
chanson d'aventure, Herrig's Archiv, lxxxvi. p. 387 : " How judicare 
come in crede " ; see last two lines ) . 

3 D 37. 

4 Nightingale, D 18 (cf. 30); turtle, 23, 30; lark, 28; "Synderisis," 
36 (cf. "Dame Conscience," 17) ; birds of undefined species, 2, 4, 9, 14, 
15, 16, 3'5. Cf. the fieldfare that sings at the poet's study window in 
Lydgate's poem, closely allied to the chansons d'aventure, which begins, 
"Toward the ende of frosty January." (Halliwell, Lydgate's Minor 
Poems, p. 156; cf. Lydgate, ed. MaeCracken, p. xx, no. 69.) Cf. also 
the bird with a " devys " in a song which apparently once possessed a 
narrative preface. (Wright, Songs and Carols, Warton Club, p. 1.) 

Wall, D 6, 13, 33; ring, 3; ribbon, 20; hood, 21; briar, 24; booh, 29; 
cf. 31 (words written on the breast of a speaker). 

6 D 23, 18, 36. 7 D 12, 26, 31. S D 25, 34. 



THE THEMES 83 

There is, however, no inevitable relation between form 
and theme; a given theme does not carry with it as a 
matter of course, a given form. The themes, moreover, bear 
little likeness to those already discussed. Not only the 
maiden's song of joy or sorrow has disappeared, but every 
analogous expression of genuine personal feeling. Every 
song of the series embodies either a conventional lament of 
penitence or regret for vanished joys, or an instructive or 
admonitory discourse. 9 Poems of the latter type are quite 
impersonal, being addressed only nominally to the listening 
poet, and in reality to sinful man: 

Mon on Molde, J?ou make ]?e jare 
A-jeyn ]>i de]? on domes-day. 10 

Though the learned turtle adapts his opening remarks to the 
special case of the mourning maid, he addresses the thirty 
or more strophes that follow to mankind in general. 11 The 
moral maxims or sermons inscribed on wayside walls are 
necessarily for the benefit of all passers by. The laments 
give opportunity for the expression of somewhat greater in- 
dividuality; the sinners allude to experience that purports 
to be personal, and they occasionally limit their ground for 
remorse to some single and definite type of misdoing, — the 
squandering of youth in Venus's service, or of a patrimony 

9 Instructive and admonitory poems are on such themes as the 
power of divine love, seen in Biblical history (23) or in the example 
of Christ, the pelican, Dido, etc. (30), variability (3, 4, 10, 34), fidelity 
in friendship (5, 28, 35), untrustworthiness (37), the brevity of youth 
(31), the motives and rewards of service (21, 26), the relative potency 
of Mercy and Right (12, 15), the certain approach of Judgment (29), 
Make Amends (14; cf. 11, 24, 36), Thank God (13, 22), Do For Thyself 
(2), Ever Say Well or Hold Thee Still (6, 33), For the Better Abide 
(20), Measure Thee (17, 25). Poems of penitence or regret relate to 
old age (1, 27, 32), loss of gold and favour (18, 19), repentance for 
sins, with fear of death and desire for mercy (7, 8, 9, 16). 

10 D 11. U D 23. 



84 THE CHANSON DAVENTUKE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

in dining and drinking. 12 But as a rule the personal allu- 
sion is merely a fleeting preliminary to the enunciation of 
a moral truth, as when a bird complains, 

.... I not how longe 
My fere & I togeder shall be 

For welfare hath no sykernes, 13 
or an " oolde man " remarks, 

Now age is cropen on me ful stille 
And maki]? me oold & blac of ble, 

And y go downeward wij? J?e hille; 
£>is World is but a vanite. 14 

It is almost always purely conventional, as the reader suspects 
when he hears a man sigh: 

I have be lorde of towr and towne, 
I sett not be my grett renowne; 
For deth wyll pluckyd all downe; 
The dred off deth do trobyll me. 15 

It is assuredly so in the case of the sad wight who admits 
that he has misspent his five wits, constantly broken all the 
Commandments, and committed all the seven sins, 16 and like- 
wise in the case of the bird who ascribes his fall to his 
" forhede large " and " browes bent " and to the beguilement 
of his mirror, and who avows further : 

ffull many a man I dyd vnreste. 
They that wold nat myne heste fulfyll 
My knyfe was redy to hys breste. 



,When I was most in all my flowres 



»D1, 19. M D 10. 

is d 4. u D9c. 



THE THEMES 85 

And had aboute me wyfe and chylde, 
I lost my catell and my tonres. 



ffortune hath pulled ryches fro me. 
Your wreche, lorde, I cannat blame. 
Parce michi, domine ! 17 

Such poems presumably owe nothing directly to French 
influence, and they owe very little beyond their general out- 
line to their English analogues of secular content. A few, 
however, are reminiscent of amorous origin. The bird who 
warbles the unexpected song " Asay thy frend or thou hast 
ned " is not unlike the mavis who " stode yn fere " and then 
" flo her way " : 1S 

Of me I trow she was agast, 

She tok hyr f lyjth in length and bred ; 

and the poet's action is more suggestive of the poet-lover's 
than is that of the ordinary adapter : 19 

Under a forest that was so long 

As I me rod with mekyll dred, 

I hard a berd syngyng a song; 



I ther stod and hoved stylL 
To a tre I teyd my sted; 

Me thoujt it was a wonder noyse, 
Alwey ner and ner I jed. 

One can believe that this fifteenth century caroller has in 
mind, definitely or indefinitely, some English song telling 

17 D 16. 18 D 35; cf. A 14. 

"Usually the didactic poet pauses, takes good heed, draws near, 
stands in wonderment or study, before he asks the question that frees 
the tongue of his interlocutor, or before he himself begins to sermonize; 
cf. D 2 b, 4, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20, 24, 29, 30, 35, 36. 



bo THE CHANSON D AVENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

of a woodland wooing. Again, the sixteenth century dia- 
logue of a Scottish " nichtingall " and a sorry " cheild " 20 
apparently represents the imperfect reconciliation of an 
amorous and a moral theme. The dejected man seems to be 
convinced that all worldly joy depends on riches, a theory 
that calls forth pained protest from the bonny bird : 

Is thi God ather deid or seik 
]STor he ma mend the of thy cair? 
Quhat wantis thow lythis or landis braid 
Or gold or geir to the ending day ? 

But when the " cheild " suggests that his particular grie- 
vance is caused by a gay lady who has forsaken him " for 
fait of gold," the nightingale eagerly resumes his time-hon- 
oured office of lovers'-counsellor, and advises good cheer: 

Giff that thow luiffit that ladie 
Bot ane sa sorrofull and sa trew 
Peraduentour hir knycht ma die; 
Scho will marie the and the low. 

Obviously the writer gives his narrative this unforeseen turn 
in the knowledge of the tradition founded by rosignol and 
trouvere; but, refusing to confess to any change of front, 
he irrelevantly concludes — 

Off this ballet ye will [leir] 

Bot God will be God quhen gold is gane. 

A much earlier and worthier northern poet composes the 
preliminary portion of a discourse on The iiii Leues of the 
True Loue 21 under the influence of a loveless maid's lament. 



30 D 18. 

ai D 23. On the true-love flower cf . Rickert, Emare, E. E. T. S. Extra 
Series xcix. 1. 125 and note; Skeat, Chauc. Pieces, Court of Love, 
1, 1440 and note, p. 553; also Twenty-Six Poems, p. 78, 1. 185, and 
Anglia, xxxi. p. 381. 



THE THEMES 87 

Abroad on his playing, in May-time, he meets with an ad- 
venture : 

Was I warre of a maye pat made mournyng 



Hir wepynge dide me woughe: 
Undir a tree I me droughe: 
Hir wille walde I wete. 



When a turtle on a tree, equally curious, asks, " Whi syghys 
you so sare ? " the girl readily divulges her secret : 

A trewe-lufe hafe I soughte be waye and be strete: 
In many faire orcherdis per noures er [ine] : 
Als ferre als I hafe soughte fande I nane jete. 

This confession furnishes the bird with a text for a tedious 
sermon on the sacred " trew-lufe grysse," rehearsing its his- 
tory from the Creation till the Assumption, and looking 
forward to its influence at the Day of Doom ; at the tardy 
close the patient maiden is recalled to our minds: 

Thus this trewe turtylle techis this may: 
Scho blyssede his body his bone and his blode ; 
Vnto pat ilke fertile lef e I rede pat we praye : 



This herde I in a lay 
Als I wente one my way 
In a mornynge of may 

Whene medowes salle sprynge. 



But the existence of such a bond between the moral < 
d'aventure and its amorous past is exceptional. Usually the 
poet is wholly preoccupied with a lesson that he would teach, 
-and turns to it at the earliest possible moment: 

Throwe a towne as y com ryde, 
Y sawe wretyn on a wall 



00 THE CHANSON D AVENTUKE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

A leffe of letterys long and wyde: 
' Hyre, and se, and sey not all ! ' 
And yff thow wolte thys lesson lere 
And covetyste to dwell yn compeny, 
What thow seyyste farre or nere, 
Looke it towche to no velany. 22 

His cry is far indeed from the lyric cry. 



D. Miscellaneous 

To him who loves a ballad, as well as to him who relishes 
a sermon, the Middle English chanson d'aventure has much 
to offer. It is true that the adventure-lyrics of political, 
satiric, or occasional nature occupy the position of least im- 
portance by virtue of their late appearance and their com- 
parative inf requency ; 1 but they outrank their didactic 
analogues in fidelity to the traditions of their class. The 
poets of these miscellaneous adventure-songs attribute the 
monologues or dialogues 2 to very life-like spokesmen ; they 
have nothing to do with the stilted inscriptions and pale 
abstractions that their more pious brothers preferred, and 
they readmit lamenting or rejoicing women to a prominence 
quite denied them by " ffrere Henri " and his like. 3 More- 
over, their manner is convincing; they record events that 
impress one as actual, or feelings that bear the stamp of 

22 D 33. 

1 Only about one-sixth of the pre-Elizabethan chansons d'aventure fall 
into this class; of these but one (2 a) dates before 1400, and less than 
half, including the traditional ballads, belong to the fifteenth century. 

2 All the poems of M are in the form of chansons dramatiques; there 
are two author's soliloquies (M 1, 7), but no proffer of devotion to 
correspond to the pastourelle. (A 32, a poet's soliloquy, is possibly to 
be considered as a political poem; cf. A 32 in Appendix B.) 

»M 11, 14, 17, 20, 22; cf. 16, 23, women in disguise of falcon, turtle, 
etc. 



THE THEMES 0» 

genuineness, and are inspired by some particular situation 
or occasion. The poet himself bewails his faithless friends 
in no merely conventional fashion: 

als I me sat my self allon 

in my hart makand my mow, 

I said, ' alias, my garamys ar gon ! 

qwat sal I do? 

that I most trayste 

it is all waste ! 

sor may me rew ! ' 4 

or reports a goodly lady's very human " adewe and ffare- 
welle " to royal favour : 

I am exilid 

Yet all the faut wasse not in me. 5 

The poet does not eliminate the personal element from his 
narrative even when — as is usually the case — he has some 
ulterior motive for relating his adventure, such as the sug- 
gestion of a salutary lesson, the praise or blame or defense 
of some noble contemporary, the reform of social or political 
evils, or the instruction or diversion of the reader. The poet 
puts his praises or protests into the mouth of the person or 
persons most vitally concerned. Eleanor of Gloucester tells 
simply of her bare-foot walk of penance through London 
town, 6 with little insistence except in the recurring burden 
of her song on the theme that all women may of her " in- 
sampull take " ; the hunted hare arouses pity solely by 
setting forth, graphically enough, his own side of the case. 7 
Elizabeth of York, who is undoubtedly represented by the 



4 M 1. 

5 M 11. (A similarly realistic expression of feeling marks the Twa 
Corbies, M 9.) 
•M 22. *M 12. 



90 THE CHANSON DAVENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

" comely quene "of the White Eose Carol, sings of her joy 
in England's " lyly whi^t rose " ; 8 the divorced Catharine 
and the usurping Anne voice their own defense, though in 
the easily penetrated guise of lioness and falcon. 9 " Threed- 
bare Conscience " tells his own tale of rebuffs in court and 
mart and chapel; 10 ploughman and shepherd and John 
Nobody express, as plainly as they dare, their discontent with 
abuses that touch them personally, — the heavy rents that 
force from countrymen the cry, " Thus be we shepe shorne," 
or shortcomings of the pastors who do not " kepe well the 
shepe of Crystts fold." 21 Even when a speaker occupies 
himself with satire of a more general nature, as against 
womankind, he desires some connection with the case; a 
man feigns an eagerness to reply to woman's traducers (with 
whom as a matter of fact he warmly concurs), 12 and the 
Misogynic Nightingale is moved to berate the much abused 
sex by his observation of a clerk, love-sick " for on (?at is 
so schene." 13 Likewise a " voce on hicht " makes of itself 
the exemplar of its theme: 

Be I bot littill of stature 
Thay call me catyve createure; 
And be I grit of quantetie 
Thay call me monstrowis of nature; 
Thus can I not vndemit be. 14 



S M 17. With equal spontaneity, if not so much appropriateness, 
the nightingale carols of England's " nobull kyng " (13). The praise 
of the king's loyal supporters, however, is entrusted to characters not 
personally concerned, — to a woman of Cheapside, who embroiders their 
initials into a vestment, and to the poet who acts as expositor (14) ; 
the lament over the dead Edward IV. is uttered by " ladyes that were 
clothed in blake " (20). 

8 M 16, 23. 

10 M 8. 

U M 5, 4, 19. In 7, Crowley's Of Abbayes, the poet feigns, at least, 
a personal interest in the matter of the suppression of abbeys. 

12 M 24. 13 M 18. u M 21. 



THE THEMES 91 

When the poet would instruct his hearers concerning the 
varied usefulness of a buck's body, he presents the desired 
information in the form of a testament made by Will Buck 
himself : 

I bequeth my bodye vnto the colde seller, 

And the fair lady to take }?e sey of me, 

I bequethe my skynne vnto J?e bowberer, 

to rewarde jour houndes my throtte also, perdee ; 15 

when he would enliven them, he tells a strange or merry 
story in which he plays a more or less prominent part. 16 
Altogether, in spite of his late day, he has done much to 
bring the chanson d'aventure again into its own. 

For guidance he has looked to adventure-songs of his own 
land, rather than to those of France. Occasionally he can 
be detected in the act of adapting love-poetry to his own ends, 
as when he turns the well-known " By a bancke as I lay " 
to the praise of England's " nobull kyng," 17 or when he 
builds up a satiric debate for which some dialogue between 
disconsolate lover and consoling bird has probably furnished 
the groundwork. 18 In its manner the White Rose song is 
suggestive of the carols, both amorous and religious, that 
belong particularly to fifteenth century England. 19 More 
often the poet seems to be composing independently in the 
tradition of the chanson d'aventure; 20 and sometimes he 



15 M 6. 

16 M 2, 3, 10. In 15, however, he chooses a figurehead, a clerk, to 
tell a tale in which he himself is not actively concerned. 

"A 7, M 13. 

18 M 18. 

19 M 17. Cf. also the burden, belonging to amorous song, "This day 
day dawes." 

20 M 23 is plainly the work of some sympathizer with the divorced 
Catharine, who is familiar with the chanson d'aventure formula, and 
elaborates it to suit his own ends. M 16, making use of the same 
general form, the same symbolism in part, and the same refrain line 



92 THE CHANSON D'AVENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

chooses to grace his ballad or hunting song with a line that 
takes us back to the days of the early forest-wooers : 

As I came by a grene forest syde, 

I met with a forster yat badde me abyde. 21 



From this review of the themes, as from the review of 
the conventional form in the preceding chapter, we may 
conclude that the authors of the Middle English chansons 
d'aventure have made the tradition established by the Old 
French trouveres quite their own. Even the earliest of the 
poets — who are acquainted directly with the French con- 
vention, though no one of them is known to have translated 
or imitated any particular French text — manifest independ- 
ence in their treatment of the themes. With them, the 
amorous episodes are distinguished by calm restraint and 
gravity; one lover contents himself with watching the sunlit 
hair of the beloved maiden, and another quietly accepts the 
decision of the woman who will not " synke in to synne." 
Moreover, as a substitute for love-making, these fourteenth 
century poets offer devout and penitential prayer or heavy 
moralizing. The later poets-errant deviate further from a 
precedent already remote from them by several centuries, 
and doubtless known to most of them only indirectly. They 
devote themselves almost exclusively in the fifteenth century 
to chansons d'aventure of the soul and of the conscience, 
and they draw their material from sources as alien to the 
original French adventure-songs as Mary-laments, dull moral 



(with necessary variation), is obviously written in answer to M 23 
by some sympathizer with Anne after her death. (The relation be- 
tween the two poems has not been noted by the editors.) 

21 M 3. Cf. a confused Elizabethan song prefaced by a few lines in 
the manner of the chansons d'aventure, ed. Fehr, Herrig's Archiv, evil, 
p. 59 (cf. ibid., cxrx. p. 428, no. 106 a). 



THE THEMES 93 

treatises, and sacred lullaby-carols. Sixteenth century poets, 
it is true, revert to amorous themes, which they treat in 
lighter mood than do their earliest English predecessors ; but 
their vivacity is always that of tavern-balladist, keen satirist 
of Dunbar's type, or Tudor court musician, — never the 
vivacity of the trouvere. Their songs, however sprightly, 
want the finish, just as the earlier English lyrics, for all 
their admirable stability, lack the grace of the French 
adventure-song. 



CONCLUSION 

The discussion in the foregoing chapters has been based 
upon an examination of all the known chansons d'aventure 
composed in England and Scotland between 1300 or earlier 
and 1550. In concluding it may be well to sum up briefly 
the more important results, disclosed by this survey of the 
English adventure-song as a type and particularly those 
gained by comparing this English type with the French 
chansons in which it had its origin. 

In the first place, the reappearance of the essential formal 
features of the French lyrics, even as late as the sixteenth 
century, and even among moral and religious and political 
songs, establishes the fact that the Middle English poets 
followed consistently in the way marked out by the trou- 
veres. But the variance in tone between the English and 
French poems is sufficient to indicate considerable independ- 
ence of spirit among the earliest poets, and a lack of any 
immediate knowledge, among the later poets, of the French 
songs the formulas of which they were constantly repeating. 
The freshness of the earliest lyrics, which are free from con- 
ventional praises of returning Spring and yet suggestive of 
sun-flecked forest-ways, their objectivity, and their serious, 
even sober, mood, come as a relief after the artificiality and 
self-consciousness of the adventure-songs of the trouvere. 
The devoutness of the lover who exclaims, 

lie myhte sayen ]?at crist hym se^e 
]?at myhte nyhtes neh hyre leje 
heuene he heuede here, 1 

distinguishes him from the French chevaliers, as the thought- 
fulness and spirituality of the writers of religious adventure- 

*A 30. 
94 



CONCLUSION" 95 

songs differentiate them from Gautier de Coincy; further- 
more, the comparative frequency of the religious lyrics among 
the earliest English chansons d'aventure stands in significant 
contrast to the scantiness of similar French songs. These 
variations in content are evident at a period when the French 
influence on the form was still direct and active. The case 
is different with the fifteenth and sixteenth century poems ; 
the dull lessons in dogma, morality, or prudence, the win- 
some religious carols, the crude but virile secular songs, and 
the tripping Tudor ditties are all alike examples of a thor- 
oughly Anglicized mode, 2 — a mode which its own followers 
doubtless scarcely recognized as a legacy from over-sea. 

A second point that has received emphasis is the utter 
conventionality of the narrative preface, in which the author 
introduces himself as adventurer. This is a point which has 
long been recognized, but upon which it is well to insist, 
inasmuch as it may serve as a restraining influence on certain 
types of criticism. It should discourage any tendency to 
base arguments of common authorship on the appearance of 
the narrative introduction and the adventure element in two 
or more poems ; 3 it should also dissuade us from emphasizing 
" das personliche Erlebnis " and " das individuelle Mo- 
ment " in lyrics such as those of Harleian ms. 225 3, 4 except 



2 A 26 and R 12, fifteenth century translations from the French, are 
exceptions. If the lyrics in Tudor song-books stand somewhat nearer in 
tone to the Old French prototypes than do the contemporary songs, or 
the earliest English lyrics of the same type, it is because the Tudor 
composers, among whom " ' derne love ' has given place to the light 
love of a frivolous court" (Chambers, Med. Lyric, p. 282), possess a 
certain kinship with the courtly, care-free trouvere, and not because they 
are consciously harking back to a foreign precedent already in their 
time several centuries old. 

3 Cf. above, Ch. II, note 87, end. 

* Cf. A. Miiller, Mittelengl. Geistl. u. Welti. Lyrik des XIII Jahrh. 
(Morsbach's Studien, xliv. 1911), pp. 129, 155, etc:, where much em- 
phasis is given to these points with hardly sufficient emphasis on their 
stereotyped nature. 



96 THE CHANSON d'aVENTUBE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

as purely stereotyped elements. What is of more vital im- 
portance, it should render us wary of accepting as actually 
autobiographical introductory narratives that relate what 
are ostensibly definite personal experiences. The tendency 
toward such criticism appears much less frequently in con- 
nection with the short songs than in connection with the 
more elaborate poems — romances or visions — which have pre- 
sumably been influenced in introduction and general struc- 
ture by the adventure element of the lyrics; the influence 
is undeniable in some cases, as, for example, in Thomas of 
Erceldoune : 

Als j me wente ]?is Endres daye 
ffull faste in mynd makand my mone, 
In a mery mornywge of Maye, 
By huntle bankkes my selfe allone, 
I herde J?e jaye, & )?e throstyll cokke, 
The Mawys menyde hyr of hir songe; 



Allonne in longynge thus als j laye 
Vndyre-nethe a semely tree 
[Saghe] j whare a lady gaye 
[Came ridand] ouer a longe lee. 5 

In this instance, as also in that of Piers Plowman* we 
should be restrained by a knowledge of the adventure-lyrics 

5 Thomas of Erceldoune, ed. Murray, E. E. T. S. Orig. Series 61, 11. 
25-36, Thornton text. Miss Burnham ("A Study of Thomas of Ercel- 
doune," Publ. Mod. Lang. Assoc, xxin. pp. 383 ff.) comments on the 
conventionality of the opening lines. It is impossible, in view of the 
tradition of the adventure-songs, to subscribe fully to her statement 
that the "' season- mo tif ' ... in connection with the walk and the 
use of the first person . . . seems to belong distinctly to visions"; 
she herself notes the Armonye of Byrdes as an exception. 

6 A. S. Jack ("Autobiographical Elements in Piers the Plowman," 
Journ. Germ. Philol. m. pp. 404 ff.) points out that the author uses 
both wanderings and dreams as a conventional literary device, not to be 
taken literally. 



CONCLUSION 97 

from attaching too much biographical significance to the open- 
ing lines. Above all, in the case of the Pearl, we should be 
led to agree with Professor Schofield 7 in his refusal to regard 
the author's dream as an " actual dream which comforted 
him in his grief." 8 

To J?at spot ]?at I in speche expoura 

I entred, in J?at erber grene, 

In Augoste in a hy? seysoura, 

Quen come is coruen wyth croke3 kene. 



Fro spot my spyryt ]?er sprang in space, 

My body on balke j?er bod in sweuen. 

The conventionality -of these lines impresses itself with new 
force upon the reader who recalls not only " the very numer- 
ous dream-poems, vision-poems, debates, and allegories of 
divers sorts current in the fourteenth century," to which 
Professor Schofield calls attention, but also the earlier chan- 
sons d'aventure, in which a poet relates that he rode or 
walked the ways in May time (sometimes even in August), 
listened in green arbours or woods to the song of a maiden 
or of a bird, and perchance indulged in slumber — so lightly 
did his duties press — before the appearance of the heroine 
of his adventure. A knowledge of the convention of the 
adventure-lyric enables us, in other words, to recognize the 
wandering of Thomas by Huntley Banks, the wandering and 
dreaming of the men who wrote Piers Plowman and the 
Pearl and other poems of the same type, as wholly orthodox, 
almost obligatory, performances, to which it is highly unsafe 
to attach any special significance. 

'"Symbolism, Allegory, and Autobiography in The Pearl," Publ. Mod. 
Lang. Assoc, xxiv. pp. 647 ff. 

8 This interpretation is suggested by Professor Osgood in his edition 
of The Pearl ( Belles-Lettres Series, Boston and London, 1906, p. xvii). — 
The lines of the poem here quoted are from the same edition, 11. 37-40, 
61-62. 

7 



98 THE CHANSON D'AVENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

With the later cultivation of the chanson d'aventure the 
present study is not concerned. Examples composed in the 
Elizabethan and in subsequent periods reproduce the estab- 
lished types, altering them often enough in spirit, but never 
in essentials of theme or structure. The gentle Elizabethans 
repeat the old pastourelles and chansons dramatiques, trans- 
forming them into charming pastoral lyrics in the neo-classic 
manner: Barnabe Barnes, as we have seen, reclaims for the 
love-poets the spiritualized pastourelle, when he pleads with 
his own Saint Mary and offers her the firstling of his flock; 
Breton, quite in the old manner, celebrates the theme of 
" lovers' meeting " : 

In the merry moneth of May 
In a morne by breake of day, 
Foorth I walked by the Wood side 
Whenas May was in his pride: 
There I spied all alone, 
Phillida and Coridon. 9 

Chansons d'aventure are legion among the degraded love- 
songs of broadside ballad days, — for street-minstrels seem, 
not unlike the trouveres, to have been overfond of eaves- 
dropping, — and are still conspicuous among later songs in 
ephemeral " Garlands " or more considerable song-collections. 
Though the themes are prevailingly amorous, they are not 
always so. " All after pleasures as I rid one day," as the 
poet Herbert tells, he stopped, wearied out, at an inn, and 
there found his "dearest Lord." 10 Less inspired poets stimu- 
late interest, by means of the popular preface, in their paltry 
matter, — the lame confession of a wight " dampned by god's 
iust iudgment " or of one John Musgrave, who paid the 
extreme penalty at Kendal for robbing the King's Receiver : 

8 Nicholas Breton, Works in Verse and Prose, ed. Grosart, Chertsey 
Worthies' Library, I. {Daffodils and Primroses, p. 7). 

10 George Herbert, English Works, ed. G. H., Palmer, II. p. 167. 



CONCLUSION" 99 

Downe Plumton Parke as I did passe 

I hard a Bird sing in a glend: 
The cheefest of her song it was — 

' Farewell, the flower of serving men.' X1 

Examples might be multiplied, but only to illustrate the 
vast popularity, and not any new development, of the type. 
It is of interest, however, to note that modern lovers of old 
song are not wearied of repeating the convention. They still 
tell, in time-honoured phrases, of spring-time adventures: 

As I went up a woodland walk 

In Taunton Dene, 

When May was green — 
I heard a bird so blithely talk 
The twinkling sprays between, 

That I stood still 

With right good will, 
To learn what he might mean. 12 

The songster is of the English greenwood, and he sings an 
English strain, stilling the poet's grief with a message of 
hope; yet one listening to his song recalls the chanson 
d'aventure of the early trouvere: 

c'est en mai au mois d'este 
que florist flor 



li rosignox m'i semont 
que j'aime loiaument, 13 



and, recalling it, avers, " The note, I trowe, y-maked was in 
Eraunce." 



u The Shirburn Ballads, ed. A. Clark, Oxford, 1907, pp. 260, 20, 
u The Blackbird : A Spring Song, Alfred Perceval Graves, The > 
tator, lxiv. p. 727. 
13 Bartsch, i. 52. 



APPENDIX A 



TEXTS HITHERTO UNPEINTED 



[Punctuation, uniform capitalization of line initials, and strophe- 
division in certain texts, are the editor's. Capitalization of letters 
within the line has been consistently disregarded. In some texts, 
especially those from MS. Rawl. C. 86, flourishes and other signs, chiefly 
over final n, have been disregarded when they appear to be without 
consistent abbreviatory significance. Further deviations from MS. read- 
ings are indicated in the footnotes.] 



I (A 17) 
Ms. Ashmole 176, f. 100 b. 

This nyghtes rest, this nyghtes rest, 
Adewe, farewell, this nightes rest I 

In a garden vnderneth a tree, 

To gether J? e x floures J?at grewe therby, 

Walking alone, I dyd espye 

A maw in paynes that was prest, 
And sorowfullye thus could he crye, 

"Adewe, farewell, this nyghtes rest! 

I nwvayled what this man dyd meane ; 
His teares raw downe all from his eyen, 2 
That he had lost his colour cleane. 

1 Ms. yi; y stands for p throughout the poem in the MS. 
2 Ms. eyes. 

100 



TEXTS HITHERTO UNPKINTED 101 

10 A carefull crye then vp he cast, 

" That I might see that I haue seene ! 
Adewe, farewell, this nyghtes rest ! " 

I asked hyra questyon, why J?at he 
Lay there all pytyouslye. 
15 He said, " Goe hence and let me lye ! 

My dolow cannot be redrest, 
For above all other yet cause haue I 
To sey, ' Farewell, this nyghtes rest ! ' 

" For gone away ys all my gladnes 
20 And come nowe ys my heavynes; 

Thus I am lefte alone helpelesse 

And must forbeare pat I love best. 
With no man can I trowe redresse; 
Wherfore adewe, this nyghtes rest! 

25 " And yet farewell, ]>at creature 

]>at hathe my hart wofull in cure, 
For whom I must so endure ! 

Yet her to please I would be prest; 
She hathe reclaymed me to her lure 

30 To say, ' Farewell, this nyghtes rest ! ' 

" Thus am I left alone 
And governonr here haue I none, 
Nor wot to whom to make my mone, 
For there ys none pat I dare trust. 
35 I can no more but ever one : 

Adewe, farewell, this nyghtes rest ! " 
finis 



102 THE CHANSON" d'aVENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

II (E2) 
MS. POEKINGTON 10, f. 198. 1 

Mery hyt ys in inay mornyng 
Mery wayys ffor to gone. 

And by a chapell as y came 2 
Mett y wyhte Ihesu to chyrcheward gone, 
Petur and Pawle, thomas and Ihon 
And hys desyplys euery-chone. 

mery hyt ys. 
5 Sente Thomas ]?e bellys gane ryng, [f. 198 b] 

And sent Collas 3 J?e mas gane syng, 
Sente Ihon toke ]?at swete offeryng; 
And by a chapell as y came. 
., mery hyt ys. 

Owre lorde offeryd whate he wolde, 
10 A challes alle off ryche rede golde ; 

Owre lady J?e crowne off hyr mowlde. 
The son owte off hyr bosoih schone. 
mery hyt ys. 
Sent Iorge J?at ys owre lady bryjte, 
He tende ]?e tapyrys fayre and bryte, 
15 To myn yje 4 a semley syjte. 

And by a chapell as y came ! 

Mery hyt ys. 

1 TMs poem, according to Mr. Madan, Bodley's Librarian, was copied 
at the same time as the rest of the MS., as is indicated by the make-up 
of the gathering of eight leaves in which it stands; but probably by a 
younger man, as the hand has the marks of a somewhat later type. This 
carol and the following are not in the same hand as the two preceding 
articles, as Sir F. Madden would indicate (Syr Oawayne, Bann. Club, 
p. lxii). 

8 This line would better follow 1. 4. 

8 St. Nicholas? Mr. Madan regards this as the likeliest conjecture; 
cf. Klaus. The letters are so carelessly formed that distinction between 
e and o cannot be certain. 

4 Ms. my nyie. 



TEXTS HITHERTO UNPRINTED 103 

III (E7) 

Ms. Harl. 2330, f. 120. 

(On the third of three fly-leaves at the end of a volume of prose 
treatises.) 

Lay lay lulay lay, my dere moder, lullay. 

As I me went J?is enderday 
Al-one on my longyng, 
Me thowth I say a wel fayre may 
A louely child rockyng. 

lull [ay] 
5 J?e mayd went wttft-owt song 

Hir child on slepe to bring; 
J?e child thowth che ded hym wrong 
And bad his moder syng. 

lull[ay] 
" Syng now, moder ! " sayd )>e child, 
10 " What schal me beffalle 

Aftur wen I come til eld, 
flior so done moders all. 

lull [ay] 
" ffor euery moder sekerly 
]?at con hir cradul kepe 
15 Ys wond to lullon louely, 

And bryngs hir child a slepe. 

lulay 
" Swete moder," sayd be child, 
" Sythen J?at ys so, 
I pray 30W ]?at je wold me roke, 
20 And syng sum-wat )>erto" x 

lullay 

1 The carol is presumably incomplete. Sufficient space is left at the 
foot of the page for at least one strophe; this part of the page is 
badly rubbed, as if a few more lines, including another lull in the 
margin, have been erased. 



104 THE CHANSON d'aVENTUKE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

IV (B 18) Version A 

Ms. Bawl. C. 86, f. 72 b. 

[Without title in this MS.] 

In a chirche as I gan knele 
This enders daye to here a masse, 
I sawe a sight me liked wele ; 
I shall yow tell what it was. 
5 I sawe a pite in a place, 

Owre lady and her sonne in feere; 
Ofte she wepte and sayde, "Alas! 
Now lith here dede my dere sonne dere ! " 

Yt seide oure lady meke and mylde 
10 To all women in J?is kyns wyse : 

" Make no dole for yowre chylde 

A faire deth yf he diese; 

ffor yf ye do ye ben vnwyse 

To se my sonne as he lyth here. 
15 Now is he dede, lo, where he lieth ! 

ffor J?y sonne dyde, my dere sonne dere. 

" All mankynde be-holde and se ! [f . 73] 



With a crowne of ]?ornes with grete envie 
20 The lewis putte my sonny s hede vpon, 

The perisid his hert with a spere so long, 
The blode as ye may se and here. 
Alias," she seide, " My lyfe lastith to long. 
Why ne had I dyde with my dere sonne dere ? 

25 " All mankynde pat euer was borne 

That haue children, be-holde and se 
How my chylde lith me beforne 
Vppon my lappe take doun of J?e tre. 
Ye daunce yowr chyldren vppon yowr knee 

30 With clippyng and kyssyng and mery chere ; 



TEXTS HITHERTO UNPRINTED 105 

IV (E 18) Version B 

Ms. Ashmole 61, f. 106. 

Lamentac/on heaie marie. 

In a chyrch as I gan knelle 
Thys endres dey fore to here messe, 
I saw a syjht me lykyd welle; 
I schall jou tell how pat it was. 
5 I saw a pyte in a place, 

Oure lady and hyre sowne in fere ; 
Wele oft sehe sy^ed and seyd, " Alas ! 
ffore now lyes dede my dere son dere ! " 

Than seyd oure lady, boJ?e meke and myld, 
10 To all women, " Be-hold and se, 

And make je no mone fore 30W chyld 

Of godes sond if it dede be; 

ffore if 3e do ]e be not wyse [f. 106 b] 

To se my sone as he lyjet here. 
15 Now he is dede ; lo, wer he lyes ! 

ffore pi sone dyjd, my dere son dere. 

" All man-kynd, be-hold and se ! 
My sone is nayled throujht fote and hond. 
With seharpe thornys and grete enye ; 
20 lues put vp hys hede with poyntes strong, 

Hys herte was persyd with a spere so long 
The blod busschyd out, as 3e may se here." 
Sche seyd, " Alas ! I lyfe to long, 
Why ne had I dyjed with my dere son dere? 

25 " All women pat euer be bore 

And haue bore chylder, be-hold and se 

How my son lyes me be-fore 

On my skyrte take fro pe rode tre. 

When je danse $our chylder on pur kne 
30 je clyppe and kyse with mery chere; 



106 THE CHANSON d'aVENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

Be-holde my sonne and beholde me ! [Version A~\ 

ffor J?y sonne dyede, my dere sonne dere. 

" Woman, woman, wel is J?e ! 

Thy chyldes cappe J?ou settist vppon, 
35 Thow pykest his hede and beholdest his ble, 

Thow wottist not wele whanne pou hast don; 

But euer, alas, I make mon 

To se my sonne as he lieth here; 

Oute of his I pyke J?ornes many oon, 
40 ffor ]?y sonne dide, my dere sonne dere. 

" Woman, a ehaplet chosyn pou hast, 
Thy chylde doth it were to J?y plesyng, 
Thow pynnest it and gret ioye makest, 
And I sit by my sonne sore sighing. 
45 My chylde hath a chapplet of ]?ornes prykkyng, [f . 73 b] 

I clippe hym, I kisse hym, with carf ull chere ; 
Thow sittist lawghing, and I wepyng, 
ffor pj sonne dide, my dere sonne dere. 

" Woman, whanne pou liste to play, 
50 Thow hast py childe on J?y kne daunsyng, 

Thow handilist his fete ; f etys arn pey, 

And vnto J?y sight wele likyng. 

The lengest fynger vpon my hande 

Thorough my sonnys fete I maye ]?rest here ; 
55 I take hem oute blody, sore wepyng : 

ffor J?y sonne dyde, my dere sonne dere. 

" Woman, loke to me ageyne ! 
Youre chyldren play with youre pappis; 
To me }?enketh it a grete payne 
60 In my sonnys brest to se so gret gappys, 

And ouer his bake so many swappys. 
With blody lippis I kys hym here. 
Wel hard," she seid, " ben myn happys ! 
Why ne had I died with my dere sonne dere ? 



TEXTS HITHEKTO TJNPRINTED 107 

Be-hold my sone and be-hold me ! [Version 5] 

ffore thy son dy^ed, my dere son dere. 

" woman, now wele is the ! 

Thy chyldes cape pou doyst vpon, 
35 Thou pykes hys erys and be-hold hys ble, 

Thow wote not wele when pou hast don; 

Bot euer, alas, I make my mone 

To se my sone as he ly3t here ; 

Oute of hys hede I pyke many a thorn, 
40 ffore J?i son dyed, my dere son dere. 

" "Woman, a chaplyte ichos pou haste, 
Thy chyld to were to thy lykyng, 
Thou pywnyst hyre, grete ioy thou makyst ; 
And I sytte here full sore wepyng. 
45 My sone hath a chaplyte of thornes prekyng, 

I clype hym and kys with carefull chere; 
Thou syttes syngyng, and I wepyng, 
ffore J?i son dyjed, my dere son dere. 

" "Woman, when pou lyst to pley, 
50 Tho hast )?i chylld on J?i kne dansyng, 

Thou be-holdes hys fase and hys aray 

Vnto J?i eje ffull wele lykyng. 

The longyst fynger of my hond beyng 

Throat my sonys fete I may thyrst it here, 
55 And take it oute, full sore wepyng; 

ffore ]?i son dy^ed, my dere sone dere. 

" Woman, loke on me ajene ! 
Thy chyld lyes sowkyng on J?i pappys ; 
There of me thynke it is grete harme 
60 In my sonys brest to se grete gappys, 

And oraie hys hede and body so many slapys. [f. 107] 
With blody lyppys I kys hym here, 
ffull herd," sche seyd, "now be myn happys! 
Why ne had I dy3ed with my dere sone dere? 



108 THE CHANSON d'aVENTUKE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

65 "Woman J?y chylde is hole and sounde, [Version A"] 

And myn lith dede vpon my kne; 

Thy chylde is lowse, myn lith bounde; 

Thy chylde hath lyffe, and dede is he : 

And all is for ]?e love of ]?e, 
70 ffor my chylde trespast neuer here. 

Women, why nyl ye wepe with me? 

ffor J?y sonne dyde, my dere sonne dere. 

" Wepe with me, bo]?e man and wyff e ! [f . 74] 

My chylde is yours, and lovidde yow well. 
75 Yf J?y childe were deed and no lyffe 

Thow coudist wel wepe at euery mele. 

But for my chylde J?ou weptist neuer a dele; 

Thowgh ]>ovl loste ]?yn, myn hath no pere. 

Thynke pat my chylde sende J?yn bo]?e hap and hele ! 
80 ffor pj sonne dyed, my dere sonne dere. 

" Women pat haue your wittes within 
And seest my chylde vpon my kne dede, 
Wepe not for ]?yne, but for myne, 
And J?ou shalt haue full mekel mede. 
85 Yt wolde my chylde a-geyn for yow blede ' f ' I 

Rather J?an ye dampned were. 
Vnto )?is mater take good hede ! 
ffor pj sonne dyede, my dere sonne dere. 

" ffare-wele women ! I may no more 
90 Reherce your chyldren and your goodnesse; 

I haue wepte for myn so sore 
That I haue for-goten bo]?e ioye and blisse. 
I praye yow all thynke on J?is, — 
My chylde hath euer be kynde to yow here ; 
95 Thynke on his passion, and he graunteth yow blis; 

ffor py sonne dyede, my dere sonne dere \" 

ffinis ; 



TEXTS HITHERTO UNPEINTED 109 

65 "Woman, thy chyld is hole and so wild, [Version B] 

And myn lyeht dede vpon my kne; 

Thyn is lowse and myn is bownd, 

And thyn hath lyf e, and dede is he : 

And all is fore pe luffe of the, 
70 ffore my sone trespassyd neuer here. 

Woman, com and wepe with me ! 

ffore thy sone dy3ed, my dere son dere. 

" Wepe with me, both man and wyffe ! 

My sone is }our, and lufys 30U wele. 
75 And thyn wer dede and hade no lyfe, 

Thou cowth well wepe at euery mele. 

ffore my son pou wepys neuer a dele; 

Thoff pou lufe thyn, myn hath no pere. 

Thynke my son gaf e J?e lyfe and hele ! 
80 ffore ]?i sone dyjed, my dere sone dere, 

" Woman, now J?ou eanste ]>i wyte ; 
Thou seyst J?i chyld whej?er it be seke ore ded. 
Wepe pou fore myn, and not fore it 
And pou schall haue mych to thy mede. 
85 Thynke my sone wyll a-gayn bled 

Ka)?er than pou dampnyd were; 
To pis matyre pou take gode hede! 
ffore thy son dy^ed, my dere son dere. 

" ffare-wele, women ! I may no more 
90 Eehers pure chylder and jour godnys; 

I haue wepyd fore my son so sore 
That I fore-gete all ioy and blys. 
I praye 30U all to thynke on pis, — 
My son is 3oure and lufys 30U wele; 
95 Thynke on hys passyon and hys blys, 

ffore thy son dyjed, my dere sone dere ! " 
Amen quod Eathe 



110 THE CHANSON d'aVENTUEE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 
V (R24) 

Ms. Eawl. C. 86, f. 65. 

Late as I wente on myn pleyng 
I set my herte all in solase ; 
Criste on a crosse I sawe hangyng, 
That dyede for man wtt/i-oute trespas. 
5 To man he cried and sayde, " Alas ! 

"Why art pou, man, vnkynde to me ? 
And now I dye to geve pe grace. 
Quid vltra debui facere ? " 

Criste Ihesu J?ies wordes may saye 
10 To euery creature pat is vnkynde: 

" What shulde I more, man, I pe praye, 

Haue do for pe pat is be-hynde ? 

Thou art pe f ayrest criature in kynde, 

ffor I pe made on lyke to me, 
15 And gave pe reason with witte and mynde; 

Quid vltra debui facere? 

" I love pe, man, aboue all J?yng. 
Therfor for pe I wolde be bore, 
And all for I wolde pe to blisse bryng ; 
20 What shulde I J?anne for pe do more? 

ffor Adam synne pou were forlore 
And lyke for euer perisshid to be, 
Yt I woll to blisse pe restore. 
Quid vltra debui facere? 

25 " I muste love pe, I maye none oper; 

Therfor love me agayne, 

Or ellys pou art an vnkynde broker. 

My love to haue pou shuldest be fayn. 

In nede I pe helpe with, myght and mayn, 
30 And now on pe crosse I dye for the, [f. 65 b] 

And suffir ]?ornes to pmch my brayn ; 

Quid vltra debui facere? 



TEXTS HITHEKTO TJNPEINTED 111 

" My hondes for pe on pe crosse ben spredde 

To shew pe mercy yf J?ou wilt craue; 
35 Me to offende pou shuldest be adrad, 

ffor yf pou do wel I wol pe saue. 

Whan pou art dede and lefte in grave 

[And all thy frendes from the flee,] x 

Yt py sowle I seke to save; 
40 Quid vltra debui facere ? 

" Whan I made pe to my lykenesse 
I made pe lorde above all J^ynge, 
And gave to pe all plentousnesse 
Of fisshes pat arn in pe see swyramyng, 
45 And ouer all bestes pat are crepyng 

On erthe I made ]?e lorde to be, 
And ouer all fovles in pe eyre fleyng: 
Quid vltra debui facere? 

" I made ]?e sonne with sterres of heven, 
50 The mone also with bryght shynyng, 

And sette ]?e sterres with planetis vij e , — 

All ]?is I did for J?y plesyng ; 2 

And of ]?e erth I made to spryng 

Erbis and treis in per degre, 
55 Her frute to bere to J?y norishyng : 

Quid vltra debui facere? 

" Ther myght neuer creature on me pleyne 
And seye pat I was vnkynde, 
ffor to helpe pe I hane ben f ayne ; 
60 But yt on ]?is pou hast no mynde. [f. 66] 

To save man yt was devyned 
That I shulde dye vpon a tre; 
Wherfor for pe I was pyned. 
Quid vltra debui facere? 

1 L. 38 supplied from the fragmentary printed version in Douce Fragm. 
f. 48 (c. 1550) ; cf. K 24 in Appendix B. 
2 Ms. j 



112 THE CHANSON d'aVENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

65 " Grete love I shewid whanne I J?e made 

Of erth a creature most excellent, 

Yf kyndnesse Jeanne in pe J?ou hadde 

Thow shuldest love me with good entent. 

Man, thy soule I made represent 
70 To pe lykenesse of pe trinite. 

ffor pou shuldest love as I ment : 3 

Quid vltra debui facere? 

" Though J?ou haue synned, yt come to me 

And aske mercy with mekenesse, 
75 ffor mercy to geve I am redy ; 

Thus shewith experience by expresse ; 

ffor I shewid neuer yt no crvelnesse 

To synfull man J?at askyth mercy; 

Yt euer J?ou shewist vnkyndnesse. 
80 Quid vltra debui facere f 

" I gave pe reason and eyen clere 
To teche pe flee from all evyll, 
And also erys J?ou hast to here, 
And in pj so vie I sette fre vill; 
85 And now I hange on caluery hill 

Naylid on crosse with naylys thre, 
To save pe, man; J?ou shuldest not spill. 
Quid vltra debui facere? 

" Whanne man had synned to hym I sende [f . 66 b] 

90 Patriarkes, profettes, and postels also, 

Trwe prechours to teche him to amende, 

That mys had don to twynne me fro ; 

And to save from endles woo 

I ordeyned of penaunce partys thre; 
95 Why hatist J?ou me, man, why art pou me foo? 

Quid vltra debui facere f 



TEXTS HITHEETO UNPBINTED 113 

" Bather J?an thou dampned shulde be, 
I from hewen agayn wolde discende 
And grevouser deth yt to suffir for pe. 
Why wrathis pou me? I noujte offende. 
All pat pe nedeth to J?e I sende. 
And now on pe erosse, as pou maiste se, 
My body is scourged and all to-rente: 
Quid vltra debui facere? 

" I haue not trespasid ; why art pou me f oo ? 
Why wratthis J?ou me, pat am py f rende ? 
Thow hast no cause to fie me fro ; 
I covet to kepe pe from J?e fende. 
Loo ! euer to pe I am hende ; 
Yf pou aske mercy with humylite 
I wyll for[geve] pe at J?ynne ende. 
Quid vltra debui facere ? " 
ffinis 



VI (D 2 a) 

MS. POKKINGTOtf 10, f. 155 b. 

As I cam by a forrest syde 
This endyrs day in one mornynge, 
I buskyd me for to abyde 
ff or I hard a lyttyll bryde synge ; 
5 A lessoun hit was for to mynge 

Nedef ull for euyrery maw to lere ; 
This wer pe nottys pat schwe cothe syng 
" Do for J?i selfe wyle pat pou art here ! 

" Do for p'\ selfe whyle pat pou may, 1 
10 And kepe ]?i sowle owte of drede; 

Whan pou arte dede and layd in clay 
Thy fryndys of pe wyll take non heyd, 

2 Ms. hert before may, dotted for expunetion. 



114 THE CHANSON d'aVENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

Thay wyll say pou haddyst no nyde 
Of mese ne mattayns ne othere praere; 
15 Thus wylle p\ say, soo god me spede; 

Do for ]?i selfe whyl pou arte here ! 

" This wylle thyne exseycuturis saye, [f. 156] 

Cry and calle as they where woode; 
Thavj pou haddyst neuer soo myche ^eusterday, 
20 To-day ]>\ sayd pou haddyst noo good; 

Hit fars be pe as ebb 2 and flod ; 
Whew yche brake ys a hy rewere 
Hyt stynttyt a-gayhe as hit stode. 
Do for Jn selfe whyll pat pou art here ! 

25 " This ys trwe, as I yowe tell, 

Whew ych one mete w^ nodyre 

Thay have pj come and pj cattayll, 

Thy treyssure, thaje hit were assure; 

Tha^ pou were his owne brodyre, 
30 In heywyn or heyle whepur pou where; 

But here gettys pou no nodyre. 

Do for pj selfe whyle pou art here! 

" Do for ]?i selfe and pou be wyse ! 

Hyt wyll pe awaylle by monye a waye. 
35 Woon penny be ]?i lyfe [pat] ys 

Is worthe iij by hond oitur ]?i day ; [f . 156 b] 

This havfe I hard olde ctercys saye. 

I do pe dredles owtte of were 

Thow wot not whew to wend awaye : 
40 Do for ]?i selfe wylle pat pou arte here ! 

" Exsecutur?/s pou wolte noh have, 
Thow holdys ]?i wyfe good and trwe; 
But securely when pou art goon 
ffull son aftnr schwe woll not rewe, 

2 Ms. ebeb, second e dotted for expunction. 



TESTS HITHERTO UNPKINTED 115 

i But son aftwr schw wyll have a newe; 

Thow arte awaye, a-nodyr ys nere. 
Thow wottust riot whew to reymeyfe; 
Do for pi selfe whyl pou art here ! 

" When pou art in pi grawe layd 
> And J?i wyfe stondys by pe, 

Son schwe souwyt in a brayde 
And fayn, says schow, berryid wold be, 
' Alase, my hert wyle breke in pre ! ' 
Thus 3 makys schw a rwthef ull chere ; 4 
i But lyttyll nowe schow dothe for pe. [f. 157] 

Do for ]?i selfe whylle pou art here ! 

" Then schow reymewyjt whom agayfi. 
Wryngyng here hon&ys as schw wer woode, 
But in pe mornyng schw ys full fayn 
) When, schow pjnkyt on pe good, 

And J»ankyt god pat daylje 3evd, 5 
' Now he wyle no more come here, 
Where to schwld I geyf of his good? 
He wyld geyfe noh whyle he was here.' 

) " Cryst pat was in beydleym bor[fL] 

Of a maydyn fayre and fre, 

And werryd pe crovh ken of thorne 

And seythe dyid vppon a tre, 

And bojt bothe yow and me 
) W[t]t his blod pat was soo dere, 

He jeyfe vs grace or pat we dye : 

Do for jowre selfe whyle we bjn here." 

Be thy lyfe day 8 , Amen Dico till! 

3 Ms. This. 

*Ms. araye with chere above it, in the same hand. 

5 The text is here apparently corrupt. 



116 THE CHANSON d'a VENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

VII (D 3) 

Ms. Harl. 1704, f. 31. 

In thy most helth 1 wisely be-ware. 

As I fared in a frith 
In somer to hure fowlis syng, 
I waxe wery and slepid there-with. 
To me was sent a swete thing : 
5 A lady me brought a fay re gold ring, [f . 31 b] 

A blisfull worde there-in it bare; 
It was this withoute lesyng, 
" In thy most welth wysely be-ware ! " 

It was pight with pereles a-boute, 
10 With saphures and rubies set on the syde, 

Dyamaundis a riall route, 

Pelled and pouderd with crapawdis white; 

Balis bright aboute gan bide, 

The clere cristall be-gan to clare, 
15 The lightenesse began to glide : 

" In thy most welth wisely be-ware ! 

" To thyn a-boue though J?ou be brought, 
I rede be-ware of balis blast; 
For thenke this worldis wele is nought; 
20 Now is mirth and now tempest. 

Thy ioye here it may not last, 
For as a fayre this world doth fare; 
For ony lordship that thou hast, 
In thy most welth wisely be-ware ! 

25 " Haue none envy, be my rede ; 

Let not thy tunge haue all the will. 



TEXTS HITHEETO UNPEINTED 117 

J?ou woost not what hangeth ouer thyn hed, 

Ne what god will send the till; 

Thou ne woost how sone god will 

The spill but if thou spare; 

In hell J?ou shalt be hampred ill, 

But thou in thy most welth wisely be-ware. 

" ffor nothyng be not bold 
Thyn euencristen for to greue ; 
pen will thy maistership faynt and fold, 
Thy dedis will turne the to repreue. 
}?enke on Adam and on Eve, 

In her lordship how they were bare; [f. 32] 

ffor a lord was a reue, — 
ffor they ne coude in welth be-ware. 2 

" Be not so bold in no manere wise 
To do thy neighbore ony maner dispite, 
ffor thou maist fall and he may rise; 
All this lieth in goddis myght. 
Saye no ill be none wight, 
Thou art not sekyr hou J?ou shalt fare; 
Loke J?ou reue no man his right, 
But in J?i most welth wisely be-ware. 

"Here thou maist se euery day 
Lordes and maisters of gret honoure ; 
Hyr goodis faileth and falleth a-waye, 
Both castell, town, and toure, 
Gold and riches, hall and boure ; 
ffro all Jns richesse do they fare, 
Pride hem shendith with sharp shoure 
That in most welth will not be-ware. 

" Sum with rooberye lese there good, 
Sum pletyng with f als entent, 



118 THE CHANSON d'aVENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

Sum bledyng her hert blood, 
60 Sum her places be all to-brent, 

With meselrie sum be shent, 
Blynd and lame also sum arre; 
J?es misehefes to hem be lent 
J?at in her welth woll not be-ware. 

65 " But whanne thi riche rentes gret 

Is lost and fro the taken, 

J?ere wil noman bid the to mete; 

Thi bolde bost begynneth to slaken. 

Men that the mirthsum dede make 
70 To speke with the then will pej spaTe. 

Euery body for thy sake [f . 32 b] 

In here most helth 3 wisely be-ware. 

" But whanne thy chaule hangeth a-downe, 

Thy gresly gost goth his gate, 
75 Where is then thy rich renown? 

f»an art thou a man al for-mate. 

Be thou neuer so gret of state, 

J>rough one check all may missefare. 

Euery man for thy sake 
80 In there most welth wisely be-ware." 

This worde was graue in a ringe 
ffull perfitely all a-boute, 
" In welth be-ware ; for ony thing 
To the erth thou shalt lowte. 
85 Though thou be richest ]?at is oute, 

There commeth a check and makyth the bare; 
ffor goddes loue be not to proude, 
But in youre most welth wisely be-ware ! " 
Amen 

3 Read welth? 



TEXTS HITHERTO UNPRINTED 119 

VIII (D21) 

Ms. Kawl. poet. 36, f. 2. 

In a chambre as I stode 
There lordys were and barenis * bold, 
I saw a knyght were an node 
"Was write with lettres al of gold; 
5 That word I be-gan faste to be-holde 

We]?er it were ynglysch or what langage; 
I<t was the word that I of tolde, 
That seruice is non eritage. 

That word I gan faste devise 
10 And thoght it was sothly sayde, 

For I haue sen men in seruise 

Lyke lordys gon a-rayd; 

And sythen with a lytyl brayde 

Ther lordys han deye for age, 
15 ]?an waxe the pouerayle dysmayde; 

For seruice is noon eritage. 

Somme man wole not hys neyghbowr knowe 
Whan he is put in hye seruice, 
Whan he is out and is ful lowe 
20 Than wole hys neyboure hym dyspice, 

Than must he priuyly hym dysgyse 
And a-bate hys hye corage ; 
For-thy thynk on this yf ]?ou be wyse, 
pat seruice is noon eritage. 

25 Truste pe not to mych to pj seruice, I rede, 

Lenger )?an pou may weel treuayle ; 
For whan pou may nat stonde in stede 
~Ne noght may thy master a-vayle; 



120 THE CHANSON V A VENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

j?an he wole wyth-outen fayle 
30 Wax wery of the and wyth-draw J?y wage. 

For-J?y, yong men, I you counsayle, 
Thynke J?at seruice is noon eritage ! 

What is a prouder thyng or a worse 

Than a knave with-outen drede, 
35 Whan he is vp vpon hys master's horse? 

To herkyn J?is shalbe thy mede : 

He shal a-lighten a-yen, so god me spede, 

A-gayn to be put a page ; 

perlore lestenyth and take good hede, 
40 J?at seruice is noon eritage. 

Wele is hym that can a craf te ! [f . 2 b] 

And he wolle se it more or lasse; 
For yf hys seruice be hym rafte, 
He may leue in clennesse, 
45 He may leue with-oute dystresse. 

Connyng is syker stage, 
And seruice is no sykyrnesse; 
Thynke it is noon eritage! 

I holde hym a fole, so haue I blysse, 
50 That for hys seruice berith hym to hye, 

And namely in the world pat nqw is 

That twrneth alday wondyrlye ; 

ffor I can ylke day wele aspye 

Of gret gentelye yemen and page 
55 Lesyth per seruice wondyr-lye 

ffor sendee is noon eritage. 



TEXTS HITHERTO UNPKINTED 121 



IX (D33) 

Ms. Tbin. Coll. Cambr. 0. 9. 38 (James's No. 1450). 

[f. 26 b] 
Hyre and see and say not all ! * 

Throwe a towne as y com ryde, 

Y sawe wretyn on a wall 

A leffe of letterys long and wyde: 
" Hyre, and se, and sey not all ! " 
5 And yff thow wolte thys lesson lere 

And covetyste to dwell yn compeny, 

What thow seyyste farre or nere, 

Looke it towche to no velany; 

But be thow evere curteyse and hende, 
10 Both yn chambers and yn hall; 

What-so-evere thow knowyste by foo or frend, 

Hyre, and se, and sey not all! 

ffor there ys nothere kyng nore knygth, 

Hy nothere lowe, yn noo degre, 
15 That doyth or seyth by day or nygth, 

That euer may hys worschypp be; 

But som of them woll haue here wyll, 

What happe there-of may be-fall. 

All that ys yll, let it be styll; t 

20 And hyre, and se, and sey not all ! 

And yff thow be curteyse and free, 
Moche worschypp may thow haue ; 
ffor ofte tymys a man may se 
A knygth ys made of a knawe. 
25 And yff thow wolte a-bowte the caste, 

Lesyng ys as men don a ball; 
The were well better at the laste 
To hyre, and se, and sey not all. 

1 Title in a later hand. 



122 THE CHANSON d'aVENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

Certyn thys ys a wondere thyng ! 
30 Be a tale nevere so fals, 

Meny men haue grete lekyng 

To tell it forth, and eche it als; 

And be it tolde ons or twyse, 

Hyt woll be long or it downe fall. 
35 There-for y rede be ware and wyse, 

And hyre, and se, and sey not all ! 

Who so woll euere talys tell 
And take no hede what he seyth, 
He is worse than J?e devell of hell, 
40 That nevere ys yn reste nothere yn peese; 

ffor he beryth venom yn hys tayle 
That ys more bytter then the gall ; 
And there-f or do af tere my consayle : 
Hyre, and se, and sey not all ! 

45 And yff thow wolte a janglere be [f. 27] 

And sey well more then thow wete, 

With that man thow myght not be, 

ISTore neythyre com to goode astate; 

And yff thow wyltte holdyn be 
50 Trewe, stedfaste as stone yn wall, 

Y rede yow thynke on thes thre: 

To hyre, and se, and sey not all. 

And yff thow do, y the saye, 

Mochell worschypp may ye wyn, 
55 Abell to do both nygth and daye, 

Helpe and ferthere all thy kyn; 

And yff thow wolte be trewe of tong, 

Men to conseyle woll the call, 

Whethere thow be oolde or yong: 
60 Hyre, and se, and sey not all ! 

ffor as men seyen yn here elde, 
As the countrey woll bare recorde, 



TEXTS HITHERTO UNPKINTED 123 

Som men for manerys meke and mylde 
Haue be made a full grete lorde; 
Som to syng with crosse and ryng; 
And som to were pelewre and pall. 
There-fore y rede, thynke on thys thyng; 
Hyre, and se, and sey not all! 
Explicit 



X (D37) 

Ms. Cott. Cleop. C. iv, f. 69. 1 

Whan that phebus beemes schynyng as golde 
Gan to ylumyne over every nacyoun, 
My harte dyd reioysse the hevyraies to byholde, 
My dull sprytes receuyd consolacyoun ; 
5 Walkyng alone for my recreacyouw, 

A voyse I harde, ryght mervelus obscure, 

Wych sayde, "Harken vnto my protestacyouw : 

Trust not the ontrustye, for hys promysse ys not sure ! " 

Hys promysse ys not sure ; thys texte sehewyth it playne. 

10 Whome schall I acuse ther-of to make probacyouw? 

Thys falsse flateryng worlde that sayth we schall remayne 
Contenewally with hym in plesure and delectacyouw, 
And haue welth and prosperyte 2 as men of reputacyouw, 
Not to be transposed, but styll here to indure. 

15 Harke thys grevous gloser of dyssymelacyoun. ! 
Trust not the on-trusty ; hys promys ys not sure ! 

For he wyll soneste dysceve hym that trustyth hym moste, 
So craftely he bygyleth ayge and all-soo yowth. 
Trust the worde of god geven by the holy goste, 
20 In wych ys contayned all veryte and trewth ; 

3 At the top of the page, in place of title, stands the word Ihesu. 
2 Ms. sprosperyte. 



124 THE CHANSON d'a VENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

For wyth hevenly grace hys floke he renewyth. 

The worlde sayth, " Thow arte of me ; be-leve that I am 

trewer, 
And I wyll not dysceve the, nor non that to me suyth." 
Trust not the ontrusty; hys promysse ys not sure! 

25 Cryste sayth fyrst, " Seke the kyngdome of heven, [f. 69 b] 
And all thyng nessyssarye schall be gevyn vnto the." 
Than sayth the worlde, " Set all at syxe and seven, 
Folowe thy lust and plesure ; thow schalt tary styll with me, 
And I wyll not dysceue the, yf thow with me agree, 

30 For of all ioye and myrth I am the renewer. 

Thow schalt never deperte from thy golde and thy fee." 
Yet trust not the ontrusty ; hys promys ys not sure ! 

brykell worlde, full of hygh regalyte! 
mysyrable vale, with vayne thow woldest man spyll ! 
35 Thow provokest man to folowe sensualyte, 

And makest hym by-leve he schall remayne here styll; 
Thow byddest hym folowe plesure hys owen mynde to full- 

fyll; 

To folowe the flessh and the fynde thow dust hym sore yllure, 
And sonest wyll dysceve hym when he wolde faynest haue 
hys wyll. 3 
40 Trust not the ontrustye, for hys promysse ys not sure ! 

To trust vnto hys promysse, yt were a mynde of madnesse ; 
He wavers as the wynde and doth both gloyse and fayne. 
Now myrth, now sorowe, now dolour, then gladnesse ; 
Now better, now wursse, now plesure, then payne; 
45 Now to want, then to haue, now love, then dysdayne; 
Now ebbe, now flodde, now corupte, now pure; 
Now hoote, now colde, now drowght, now rayne. 
Trust not the ontrusty, hys promysse ys not sure ! 

3 Wyll above the line in the MS. 



TEXTS HITHERTO UNPKINTED 125 

All men be not in pouertye, nor all be not in welth; [f. 70] 
50 All be not wylde, nor all be not tayme ; 

All be not in syckenes, nor all be not in helth ; 

All in good reporte, nor all in y veil name ; 

All be not dyshonoryde, nor all in worldely fame ; 

All be not mery, nor all in f eref ull f ure ; 
55 All be not in ernest, nor all be not in game. 

Trust not tbe ontrusty, bys promys ys not sure ! 

Yf all men were a-lyke rych, then who schuld obay other ? 
Yf all men were a-lyke strong, who schuld wynne the f ylde ? 
Yf all men wer a-lyke pore, then who schuld helpe hys 

brother ? 
60 Yf all men were a-lyke wyse, who schulde be reconsylde? 
Yf all men were trewe and trusty, then who schulde be 

begylde ? 
And all men of lyke ayge, to byleve it wolde vs procure 
That we schulde lyve and dye all at onsse, — man, woman, 

and chyld, — 
And so trust thys on-trusty worlde, wych ys full onsure. 

65 Euery man ys not of good dysposyssyouws, 

Nor all men be not geven to do yll ; 

So contrary persons hath dyversse condyssyons, 

"Waveryng as the worlde settes them at ther wyll. 

He that wroght vs hath bowght vs by hys devyne power and 
skyll, 
70 He doth save vs, and wyll haue vs, for we be hys cure ; 

He hath promyssed and devysed that we schall com hym tyll. 

Trust hym that ys trusty, hys promys ys sure ! 

The waye lythe soo streght that foreward must we goo, 
From owur youth travelyng tyll that we be olde ; [f . 70 b] 
75 Backe we schall not returne, nother for frynde nor foo. 

Who schall make vs yong agayne for ony sum 4 of golde? 

* Ms. sm a , the common abbreviation for summa, here transferred to 
represent the English equivalent. This explanation was suggested to 
me by Mr. D. T. B. Wood, of the Department of mss., British Museum. 



126 THE CHANSON d'aVENTUKE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

From day to day owur yeres schall be sone tolde ; 
We may perceve and see it ys no dreme nor schewer; 
Thys worlde doth but fiater, playnely we may by-holde. 
80 Trust not the on-trusty, hys promysse ys not sure! 

Ther ys not the myghtyest, the lyghteste, the wyghtest pat . 

doth walke, 
The maddest, the 5 saddest, the gladdest of them all, 
The fayntest, the quentest, the dayntyest in ther talke, 
The faytest, the quetest, the greteste ye can call, 
85 The fryckest, the quyckest, the tryckest vnyuersall, 
The newest, the trewest, the duest to endure, 
The longest, the strongest, but from hensse deperte schall. 
Truste not the ontrusty, for hys promys ys not sure! 

Yf we by-leve cryste, than schall we planely see 
90 That hys worde must be trewe that he sayth in hys gospell : 
" He that ys of the worlde ys not of me." 
Loke that we conclude, as skrypture doth tell, 
All worldly plesures from vs to exspell; 
As god hath comandyd, soo kepe owur hartes invre. 
95 Then schall we haue the joye that all joyes doth exsell. 
Trust hym that ys trusty, hys promys ys sure! 
finis 



TEXTS HITHERTO UNPRINTED 127 



XI (Mil) 

Ms. Corporation of Tenterden, (Oldest Eecord Book), 
f. 14. 1 

Be a wildernes 

As I did passe 

The swet floores for to smell, 

I sawe a goodly 2 lady 

Mornyd rigth pituisly 

Seyng, " A-dewe and ffarewelle ! 



price 4 

[fljoore thelyse! 

I am exilid 

s no blame 

lie the schame 

Wich hath you this begilid. 
Yet all the faut wasse not in me, 
Tho you disseuyd be. 
Wherfore I besech your gTace 



1 Ms. described Hist. M8S. Com. Report vi, Appendix, pp. 569 f. 
This poem occurs at the top of the fourteenth of the loose leaves (as 
they are at present arranged), that precede the volume proper, having 
once formed a padding to the leather sides of the book; they apparently 
once were part of the Account Book of a Tailor and Draper for the 
year 1535-1536 and a few years following. 

1 Ms. godly. 

3 After 1. 6 occur, in the same hand, the following lines, which have 
been crossed out, apparently by the original writer: 

All wordly {sic) yoye {sic) 

Clene is gone a way 

And th . . . I rage in woo. 

A tear in the MS. has removed part of the last of these three lines, 
and the first half of the following five. 

4 Part of a letter, probably / of of, is visible before price. 



128 



THE CHANSON D A VENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 



To haue on me compassion, 
20 For cowncell wasse the occasioim 

W 5 ]ieh movid me to this case. 
The lioun of price wyth the floor the lyse ! 
Yett and the f ant wasse not in me." 6 



XII (M20) 

Ms. Hael. 3952, f. 105 b. 1 

The lame [ntacioun] of ladyes for the death of king Edward 
the iiij th 

[In Ma]y whan euery herte is lyghte 
[And f]ayre flourys doth sprede and springe 
[I rose me np] byfore the daye bryghte 
[For to hey re th]e birddys syng 
5 [I herd a wofu]ll lamentinge 

5 One loop of this letter is visible. 

•At the top of f. 14b, in a different hand, and therefore quite dis- 
connected with the fragment printed above, are the lines which are 
given in the Hist. M88. Com. Report apparently as part of the same 
poem: 

Banesshid am I, and no cause whye, | farewele 

Thorow thougthe for and disdayne; I all friske 

And tho that I therfore shoulde dye, j farewele 

Yet can I not refrayne. | and fere 

Not refrayne; shoulde dye. 
Alas that same swete fase whome dethe cevelle 
Hathe strykyn with his mase | and takyne awaye fro me! 

Compare the religious song (Gude and Godlie Ballatis, p. 63; cf. note, 
p. 253), beginning: 

Allace that same sweit face 

That deit vpon ane tre. 

1 1 am indebted to Professor Carleton Brown for the transcript of this 
fragment. The left-hand portion of the page has been torn away. The 
phrases in brackets are supplied from second copies of the first strophe 
and of 1. 22, which have been added below. 



TEXTS HITHEETO UNPKINTED 129 

[Of ladyes tha]t were clothed in blake 
pt for king Edwardes sake 

alas 

oble kyng 

10 11 destresse 

sor morninge 

handis wringe 

lothis blake 

warden sake 



morne 

mo . . . 

20 clothes blak 

Edwardes sake 

[e ded wer clothe] s of sylke 

hevie 

t mylke 

25 

mems 

clothe blake 

ing edwardes sak 

tyme was king 

30 ...... prosperite 



APPENDIX B 



ALPHABETICAL REGISTER OF MIDDLE ENGLISH 
CHANSONS D' A VENTURE 



[All known sources, both manuscript and printed, are listed for all 
the poems included in the register, with the exception of popular ballads 
and poems by known authors (Lydgate, Dunbar, etc.), in which cases 
reference is made only to the standard editions.] 



A (Amoeous) 

A lone a lone here y am my sylf a lone, etc. (burden pre- 
fixed to A 27). x 

1. As I came by a bowre soo fayr. 

Ms. Rawl. C. 813, c. 1520-1540. Ed. Padelford, Anglia, xxxi. p. 312. 

2. As I did walk onys be ane medo side. 

Msi. at Wemyss Castle, scec. xv, first half; the poem written on 
a fly-leaf, not later than c. 1542. Edd. Laing, Select Remains, p. 361 ; 
Laing, Early Pop. Poetry, i. p. 112. 

As I gaed out in a May morning. Cf. 29 (version C).> 

As I passyd by a sartayn place (line 3 of A 13). 

3. As I stode in study enge allone. 

The Complaynte a-geyne Hope. Mss. Bodl. 638, f. 209 b; Fairfax 
16, f. 195 b; Harl. 7333, f. 135; all scec. xv. Unprinted.— Cf. Ham- 
mond, Chaucer, A Bibliographical Manual, pp. 177, 334 ff., 416. 

4. As I stod on a day me self vnder a tre. 

Ms. Arundel 27, College of Arms, scec. xiv, beg. Ed. Rel. Ant. II. p. 
19. — The MS. is no longer marked " E. D. N. No. 27" (presumably 
representing "Edward, Duke of Norfolk"), as it is said to be, 
Rel. Ant., I. c. 

1 Padelford, Herrig's Archiv, cxix. p. 427, No. 90, suggests that the 
lines beginning " Alone, alone," etc., are the burden to No. 91, and not 
a separate poem, as Fehr considered them to be. 

130 



ALPHABETICAL REGISTER 131 

5. As I walked fforth one morninge. 

Ballad, Christopher White. Ed. Child, Ballads, No. 108. 
As I went forth to take the air. Cf. 29 (version D). 

6. Be chance bot evin this vthir day. 

Ms. Bannatyne, 1568. Ed. Bann. MS. Hunt. Club, p. 358. Colophon: 
" Finis quod ane Inglisman." 

7. By a bancke as I lay/musyng my sylfe alone hey how. 

Ms. Hoy. App. 58, c. 1500-1510. Edd. Chappell, Old Engl. Pop. Music, 
I. p. 46; Collier, Extracts from Stationers' Registers, Shak. Soc. 
London, 1848-1849, I. p. 193; Kimbault, Little Book, No. 16, p. 53; 
Furnivall, Captain Cox, p. cxxxi; Fliigel, Anglia, XII. p. 264; Fliigel, 
Neuengl. Leseb. p. 139; Chambers and Sidgwick, p. 71. 

8. By Arthur's Dale as late I went. 

Ballad, Bonny Bee Horn. Ed. Child, Ballads, No. 92 A. Version B 
beg., " In Lauderdale I chanc'd to walk." 

9. By west off late as I dyd walke. 

Ms. Cott. Vesp. A. xxv, scec. xvi, second half. Edd. Kitson, The Cale- 
donian Muse, London, 1785, 1821, p. 172; Laing, Select Remains, p. 
367; Laing, Early Pop. Poetry, n. p. 74; Boddeker, Jb. f. rom. u. 
engl. Spr. u. Lit. N. F. n. p. 220. 

(C)Olle to me the rysshys grene, etc. (burden prefixed to 
A 11). 

10. Erie at the day doue. 

Minute-book of Burgh Sasines of Aberdeen; recorded (1503-1507) 
together with some verses by Dunbar. Ed. W. Dauney, Ancient 
Scotish Melodies, Bannatyne Club, Edinburgh, 1838, p. 49 (in "Pre- 
liminary Dissertation " ) . 

11. ffor my pastyme vpon a day. 

Ms. Boy. App. 58, c. 1500-1510. Edd. Ritson, Anc. Songs, p. lxv; 
Chappell, Old Engl. Pop. Music, I. p. 38; Furnivall, Captain Cox, 
p. clii; Fliigel, Anglia, xil. p. 259; Padelford, XVI. Cent. Lyrics, 
p. 83. 

12. Furth ouer the mold at morrow as I ment. 

Ms. Bannatyne, 1568. Ed. Bann. MS. Hunt. Club, p. 774. Colophon: 

" Finis quod Stewart." 

13. Good awdience, harken to me in this cace. 
Line 3 : "As I passyd by a sartayn place." 

Ms. Ashmole 48, scec. xvi, middle. Ed. Wright, Songs and Ball. 
Boxb. Club, p. 129. Colophon: "Finis, quod J. Wallys." 



132 



THE CHANSON D AVENTUKE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 



14. Hay how the mavys/on a brere. 

Ms. Addit. 5665, scec. xvi, beg. Ed. Fehr, Herrig's Archiv, cvi. p. 
284. (Cf. Padelford, ibid., cxix. p. 427, No. 98.) 

Howe shulde I be so plesunte, etc. (burden prefixed to 
A 33). 

15. I hard lately to a ladye. 

Ms. Ashmole 48, scec. xvi, middle. Ed. Wright, Songs and Ball. 
Eoxb. Club, p. 28. Colophon: " Fynis, quoth G. F." 

I haue loued so many a day, etc. (burden prefixed to A 38, 
q. v.). 
1(5. In a fryht as y con fere fremede. 

Ms. Harl. 2253, c. 1310. Edd. Wright, Spec. Lyr. Poetry, p. 36; 
Boddeker, Altengl. Dicht. p. 158, W. L. vi. 

17. In a garden, vnderneth a tree. 

Ms. Ashmole 176, scec. xvi. Ed. Appendix A, No. I. 

18. In a sartayn place apoyntyd for pleasur. 

Ms. Ashmole 48, scec. xvi, middle. Ed. Wright, Songs and Ball. 
Rbxb. Club, p. 133. Colophon: "Finis, quod John Walles." 

19. In an arber of honor, set full quadrant. 

Ms. Ashmole 48, scec. xvi, middle. Ed. Wright, Songs and Ball. 
Roxb. Club, p. 136. Colophon: " Fynys, quod Johan Walles." 

20. In Bowdoun, on blak monunday. 

Ms. Maitland, c. 1570-1590. Edd. Pinkerton, Anc. Scot. Poems, I. 
p. 135; Sibbald, Chron. Scot. Poetry, in. p. 195. Colophon: "Quod 
Clappertoun." 

In Lauderdale I chanc'd to walk. Cf. 8 (version B). 

21. In May in a morning, I movit me one. 

Ms. Bannatyne, 1568. Ed. Bann. MS. Hunt. Club, p. 647. 

22. In may whan euery herte is lyjt/And nowrys frosschely 

sprede & sprynge. 
Ms. Cambr. Gg. 4. 27, c. 1400. Ed. E. P. Hammond, Journ. of Engl, 
and Germ. Philol. vn. p. 105. 

23. In secreit place this hyndir nycht. 
Dunbar, Scot. Text. Soc. n. p. 247. 

24. In somer quhen flouris will smell. 

Ms. Bannatyne, 1568. Ed. Sibbald, Chron. Scot. Poetry, in. p. 203; 
Bann. MS. Hunt. Club, p. 399. 

25. In be (ye) begynnyng off thys yere. 

Ms. Roy. App. 58, c. 1500-1510. Ed. Fliigel, Anglia, xil. p. 265. 



ALPHABETICAL REGISTER 133 

26. In the forest of noyous hevynes. 

Ms. Harl. 682, scec. xv. Ed. Taylor, Poems, Written in English, by 
Charles, Duke of Orleans, Roxburghe Club, London, 1827, p. 105. 
Translated from Charles d'Orleans ( ed. d'Hencault, I. p. 82 ) ; the 
translator, according to Professor MacCracken (Publ. Mod. Lang. 
Assoc, xxvi. pp. 142 ff.) is probably the Duke of Suffolk, the English 
friend of Charles d'Orleans, to whom Professor MacCracken attri- 
butes also A 32 and A 46. 

27. In wyldernes/there found y besse. 

Ms. Addit. 5665, s(bc. xvi, beg. Edd. Ritson, Ano. Songs (Ed. 1792), 
p. 122; Fehr, Herrig's Archiv, cvi. p. 283. (Cf. Padelford, ibid', 
cxix. p. 427, Nos. 90-91.) 

28. Into a mirthfull May morning. 

Iohn Forbes, Gantus, Songs and Fancies, To Three, Four, or Five 
Parts . . . The Third Edition, much enlarged and corrected. 
Printed in Aberdeen by Iohn Forbes, . . . 1682. Reproduced for 
the New Club Series, Paisley, 1879, The III. Song. ("Evidently 
an English song of early date"; cf. Gude and Godlie Ballatis, 
p. 270, note on R 23.) 

29. Into a sweet May morning. 

Ballad, John of Hazelgreen. Ed. Child, Ballads, No. 293 A. Versions 
B, C, and D, begin respectively: "It was on a morning early," "As 
I gaed out in a May morning," " As I went forth to take the air." 
It was on a morning early. Cf. 29 (Version B). 

30. Mosti ryden by rybbesdale. 

Ms. Harl. 2253, c. 1310. Edd. Wright, Spec. Lyr. Poetry, p. 33; 
Boddeker, Altengl. Dicht. p. 154, W. L. v. 

31. My jornay lat as I dyd take. 

Ms. Ashmole 48, scec. xvi, middle. Ed. Wright, Songs and Ball. 
Roxb. Club, p. 97. Colophon : " Finis, quoth Harry Sponare." 

1ST ay mary I nay maye mary, etc. (burden prefixed to A 25). 

32. ISTot far fro marche, in the ende of feueryere. 

Ms. Fairfax 16, scec. xv, first half. Ed. MacCracken, Publ. Mod. 
Lang. Assoc, xxvi. p. 167, with the suggestion (p. 149) that the 
reference is to a political, not to an amorous, grievance; attributed 
to the Duke of Suffolk, ibid., pp. 148 ff. 

33. JSTot long agoo/it chaunsed soo. 

Sir Thomas Wyatt, Poetical Works, Aldine Edition, London, n. d., 
p. 130; Padelford, XVI. Cent. Lyrics, p. 12. 

No[w] spri[nke]s the sprai, etc. (burden prefixed to A 37). 



134 



THE CHANSON" d'aYENTUKE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 



34. Quhen Flora had ourfret J?e firth. 
Ms. Bannatyne, 1568. Edd. Ramsay, The Ever Green, I. p. 256; 
Sibbald, Chron. Scot. Poetry, III. p. 160; Bann. MS. Hunt. Club, p. 
621; Poems of Alexander Scott, Scot. Text. Soc. App. p. 188. Colo- 
phon (in The Ever Green) : "Quod Stewart." 

35. Quhen Tayis bank wes blumyt brycht. 

Ms. Bannatyne, 1568. Edd. Brydges and Haslewood, The British 
Bibliographer, London, 1810-1814, rv. p. 186; Laing, Select Remains, 
p. 220 ; Laing, Early Pop. Poetry, I. p. 169 ; Bonn. MS. Hunt. Club, 
p. 660. 

Quhy so strat Strang go we by youe? (burden prefixed to 
A 10). 

36. Still vndir pe levis greene. 

Ms. Maitland, c. 1570-1590; this poem mentioned in Complaint of 
Scotland, 1549. Edd. Pinkerton, Anc. Scot. Poems, n. p. 205; Sib- 
bald, Chron. Scot. Poetry, I. p. 201 (dated 1460-1488) ; Laing, Early 
Pop. Poetry, II. p. 34; Furnivall, Captain Cox, p. cl; G. G. Smith, 
Specimens of Middle Scots, Edinburgh and London, 1902, p. 64. 

37. This endre dai als i me rode. 

Ms. Hale 135, Lincoln's Inn; this entry c. 1303. Edd. Woodbine, 
Mod. Lang. Rev. rv. p. 236; Skeat, ibid., v. p. 104. 

38. pis ender day wen me was wo. 

Ms. Addit. 5666, scec. xiv-xv; a fiagment, probably scec. xv. Ed. 
Bitson, Anc. Songs, p. xlvi; copied in full, from the MS., above, p. 
59. — Musical notes accompany the line, " I haue loued so many a 
day," quoted above as burden to A 38, and the line, " his ender day," 
etc. Possibly the two lines are fragments of two separate songs, 
as Ritson suggests; but more probably they represent burden and 
song proper, as is indicated not only by their juxtaposition in the 
MS., but also by the close analogy that they offer to such songs as 
A 37. 

This nyghtes rest, this nyghtes rest, etc. (burden prefixed 
to A 17). 

39. This other day I hard a may. 

Ms. Addit. 31,922, scec. xvi, first half. Edd. Fltigel, Anglia, xn. 
p. 236; Fliigel, Neuengl. Leseb. p. 135; Chambers and Sidgwick, 
p. 59. 

40. Thys yonder s nyght/I herd a wyght. 

Ms. Roy. App. 58, c. 1500-1510. Ed. Fltigel, Anglia, xn. p. 265. 

41. Throughe a forest as I can ryde. 

Ms. Rawl. C. 813, c. 1520-1540. Edd. Halliwell, Nugw Poet. p. 42 
(where the ms. reference reads erroneously, "Rawl. C. 258"); 



ALPHABETICAL REGISTER, 135 

Child, Ballads, No. Ill, Crow and Pie; Padelford, Anglia, xxxi. 
p. 374. 

42. Under ane brokin bank ane by. 

Ms. Maitland, c. 1570-1590. Edd. Pinkerton, Ane. Scot. Poems, II. 
p. 200; Sibbald, Chron. Scot. Poetry, in. p. 197. 

43. Vp y arose in verno tempore. 

Ms. Addit. 5665, scec. xvi, beg. Ed. Fehr, Herrig's Archiv, CVI. p. 
284. (Cf. Padelford, ibid., cxix. p. 427, No. 97.)— Ms. Ashmole 176, 
scec. xvi. f. 98 b. Unprinted. 

44. Upon a mornyng of May. 

Ms. Harl. 1317, scec. xvi. first half. Ed. Rel. Ant. n. p. 39. 

45. Upon the Midsummer ewin, mirriest of niehtis. 
Dunbar, Scot. Text Soc. II. p. 30. 

46. Walkyng allon, of wyt full desolat. 

Ms. Fairfax 16, scec. xv, first half. Ed. MacCracken, Publ. Mod. 
Lang. Assoc, xxvi. p. 163; attributed to the Duke of Suffolk, ibid., 
pp. 148 ff. 

Wep no more for me, swethart, etc. (burden prefixed to 
A 44). 



E (Religious) 

1. All under the leaves, and the leaves of life. 
Traditional carol. Edd. Bullen, Carols and Poems, London, 1886, 
p. xxiii; Oxford Bk. of Engl. Terse, 1907, No. 382; Oxford Bk. of 
Ballads, 1910, No. Ill; Rickert, Carols, p. 145; etc. 

Alone, alone, alone, alone, etc. (burden prefixed to R 6). 

2. And by a chapell as y came. 

Ms. Porkington 10, c. 1460. Ed. Appendix A, No. n. 

3. As I cam ( ? walkyng) by )?e way. 

Ms. Ball. 354, sosc. xvi, first half. Edd. Fliigel, Engl. Weihnachts- 
lieder, p. 81; Fliigel, Anglia, xxvi. p. 267 (cf. Holthausen, Anglia, 
xvii. pp. 443 f.) ; Pollard, XV. Cent. Prose and Verse, p. 94; Dyboski, 
Ball. MS. 354, p. 48; Rickert, Carols, p. 102. 

4. As I me lenyd unto a joyful place. 

Ms. Harl. 2251, scec. xv. Ed. Halliwell, Lydgate's Minor Poems, 
p. 78.— Ms. Trin. Coll. Cambr. R. 3. 21 (James's No. 601), scec. 
xv; two copies, fF. 196 b, 245 b. Unprinted. 



136 THE CHANSON d'aVENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

5. As I me ros in on morwenyng. 

Ms. Sloane 2593, c. 1450. Ed. Wright, Songs and Carols, Warton 
Club, p. 48. — Ms. Bodl. Engl. Poet. e. 1, scec. xv, second half; beg., 
"As I up ros in a mornyng." Ed. Wright, Songs and Carols, Percy 
Soc. p. 50; Rickert, Carols, p. 68; Chambers and Sidgwick, p. 141 
(a text combined from mss. Bodl. and Sloane). — Ms. Addit. 25,478, 
scec. xix, f. 27 (a transcript evidently from MS. Bodl.). Unprinted. 

6. As I me walkyd this endurs day. 

Ms. Addit. 5465, c. 1500. Ed. Fehr, Herrig's Archiv, cve. p. 59 
(cf. Padelford, ibid., cxix. p. 425, No. xxxi). 

7. As I me went J?is ender day. 

Ms. Harl. 2330, scec. xv. Ed. Appendix A, No. in. 

8. As I out rode this enderes night. 

(Song from the Nativity Play, Pageant of Shearmen and Tailors, 
written before 1500, revised 1534.) Ed. Pollard, XV. Cent. Prose 
and Verse, p. 272; Craig, Two Coventry Corpus Christi Plays, 
E. E. T. S., Extra Ser. ixxxvii, 1902, pp. 31 f.; Rickert, Carols, p. 99. 

9. As I pass'd by a river side. 

Traditional carol, The Carnal and the Crane. Ed. Child, Ballads, 
No. 55; etc. 

As I up ros in a mornyng. Cf. 5 (Bodl. version). 

10. As I went J?row a gardyn grene. 

Ms. Sloane 2593, c. 1450. Edd. Wright, Songs and Carols, Warton 
Club, p. 53; Fehr, Herrig's Archiv, cix. p. 58 (cf. Padelford, ibid., 
cxix. p. 429, No. xli) ; Rickert, Carols, p. 174. — Ms. Advoc. Libr. 
Edinb. Jac. v. 7. 27, soec. xv; beg., " I passud thorow a garden grene." 
Ed. Turnbull, Visions of Tundale, p. 157. 

As Ihesu rewlith myn reccheles mynde. Cf. 11 (Eawl. 
version). 

11. As resouw rewlid my richelees mynde. 

a. Ms. Lambeth 853, c. 1430. Ed. Polit. Belig. and Love Poems, 
p. 233. 

b. Ms. Harl. 3954, c. 1420. Ed. ibid., p. 238. 

c. Ms. Douce 78, scec. xv. f. 3 a. Unprinted. 

d. Ms. Rawl. C. 86, scec. xvi, first half, f. 74b; beg., "As Ihesu 
rewlith myn reccheles mynde." Unprinted. 

On versions a and 6, cf. Jacoby, Vier Mittelengl. Geistl. Gedichte, 
Berlin, n. d. (?1890) p. 31; Crowne, " M. Engl. Poems on Joys 
and Compassion of Mary," Catholic Univ. Bull. vin. p. 315; Thien, 
tsber die Engl. MarienJclagen, Kiel, 1906, pp. 14, 68 ff.; Taylor, "The 
Engl. Planctus Mariae," Mod. Philol. IV. pp. 609 f., 619 f., 633 f. 



ALPHABETICAL REGISTER 137 

12. As pat I walkid in the monthe of May. 

Hoccleve's Works. I. The Minor Poems. Ed. F. J. Furnivall, 
E. E. T. S., Extra Ser. lxi. 1892, p. 67. (Translation of a French 
poem of which an extract is printed, Bom. vin. pp. 335 f . ) 

13. Ase y me rod ]?is ender day. 

Ms. Harl. 2253, c. 1310. Edd. Wright, Spec. Lyr. Poetry, p. 94; 
Boddeker, Altengl. Dicht. p. 217, G. L. xrv. 

14. Atween mydnyht and the fressh morwe gray. 
Lydgate, Ed. MacCracken, I. p. 268. 

15. By one foreste as I cone ryde. 

Line 7 of poem beg., " Lovely lordynges, ladys lyke." Ms. Porking- 
ton 10, c. 1460. Ed. Halliwell, Early Engl. Misc. p. 1. 

16. Downe by pne riuer I ran. 

Eeligious ballad, scec. xvi, probably first half. Ed. Gude and Godlie 
Ballatis, p. 168. 

17. From petres bourh in o morewenyng. 

Line 11 of poem beg., " Nou skrinkeb rose & lylie flour." Ms. 
Harl. 2253, c. 1310. Edd. Wright, Spec. Lyr. Poetry, p. 87; Boddeker, 
Altengl. Dicht. p. 212, G. L. xii; Chambers and Sidgwick, p. 97; 
Patterson, M. Engl. Pen. Lyric, p. 98. 

I passud thorow a garden grene. Cf. 10 (Advoc. Libr. 

Edinb. version). 
Iesu crist, heouene kyng (line 1 of E 25). 

18. In a chirche as I gan knele. 

Ms. Rawl. C. 86, scec. xvi, beg. Ed. Appendix A, No. iv, Version A. — 
Ms. Ashmole 61, scec. xv, end. Ed. Hid., No. IV, Version B. 

The same poem without narrative preface, occurs in mss. Cambr. 
Ff. 2. 38 and Ff. 5. 48, both scec. xv; edd. Wright, Chester Plays, n. 
p. 207, and Bel. Ant. n. p. 213, respectively; discussed by Jacoby, 
pp. 30 f., Crowne, p. 315, Thien, pp. 17 1, Taylor, p. 610 (cf. on R 
11). Both Cambr. texts omit strophes 1-3 of R 18, but have two 
strophes (Cambr. str. 5, 7) that are lacking in R 18; neither Cambr. 
text changes the refrain from, " Now lith here dede my dere sonne 
dere " to " ffor by sonne dyde, my dere sonne dere," after str. 1, 
as do both versions of R 18; both Cambr. texts agree in a strophe 
order different from that of R 18. 

19. In a valey of bis restles mynde. 

Ms. Lambeth 853, c. 1430. Ed. Polit. Belig. and Love Poems, p. 180; 
Chambers and Sidgwick, p. 151 ( extracts. ) —Ms. Cambr. Hh. 4. 12, 
scec. xv, second half; beg., "In the vaile of restles mynd." Ed. 
Polit. Belig. and Love Poems, p. 181. 



138 THE CHANSON d'aVENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

20. In May as that Aurora did vpspring. 
Dunbar, Scot. Text Soc. if. p. 174. 

21. In somer bi-fore J?e ascenciun. 

Ms. Vernon, c. 1370. Ed. Minor Poems Vernon MS. II. p. 733; Pat- 
terson, M. Engl. Pen. Lyric, p. 125. — Ms. Addit. 22,283, c. 1380-1400. 
Unprinted. (Noted by Varnhagen, Anglia, vn. p. 281, No. 26.) 

22. In sommer tyme I dyd prepaire. 

Ms. Cott. Vesp. A. xxv, scec. xvi, second half. Ed. Boddeker, Jb. f. 
rom. u. engl. Spr. u. Lit. N. F. in. p. 103. 

In the vaile of restles mynd. Cf. 19 (Cambr. version). 

23. In till ane myrthfull Maij morning. 

Keligious ballad, scec. xvi, probably first half. Ed. Gude and Godlie 
Ballatis, p. 137. 

24. Late as I wente on myn pleyng. 

Ms. Rawl. C. 86, scec. xvi, beg. Ed. Appendix A, No. v. — A portion 
of this poem (str. 2, 11. 2-8, str. 3, 5) exists in Douce Fragm. f. 48 
(formerly Douce Fragm. 94), fol. 2, ascribed by Proctor (Notes of 
Early Printed Fragm. in the Bodl.) to the press of W. Copland, 
c. 1550. Fliigel (Anglia, xii. pp. 585 ff.) does not mention these 
strophes in his account of the fragment. 

Lay lay lulay lay, my dere moder lullay (burden prefixed to 
E 7). 

Lovely lordynges, ladys lyke (line 1 of R 15). 

Man, meve thy mynd, & joy this fest, etc. (burden pre- 
fixed to K 3). 

Mery hyt ys in may mornyng, etc. (burden prefixed to R 2). 

Moder qwyt as lylie flour (burden prefixed to R 5). 

Nou skrinke]? rose & lylie flour (line 1 of R 17). 

ISTowel, nowel, nowel, syng we with myrth, etc. (burden pre- 
fixed to R 26). 

25. J?is enderday in o morewenyng. 

Line 10 of poem beg., " Iesu crist, heouene kyng." Ms. Harl. 2253, 
c. 1310. Edd. Wright, Spec. Lyr. Poetry, p. 59; Boddeker, Altengl. 
Dicht. p. 193, G. L. v; Patterson, M. Engl. Pen. Lyric, p. 88. 

26. Under a tre, in sportyng me. 

Ms. Bodl. Engl. Poet. e. 1, scec. xv, second half. Edd. Wright, Songs 
and Carols, Percy Soc. p. 73; Rickert, Carols, p. 20. — Ms. Addit. 
25,478, f. 33 b, scec. xix (a transcript evidently from MS. Bodl.). 
Unprinted. 



ALPHABETICAL EEGISTER 139 

27. Whan Dame Flora/In die aurora. 

The Armonye of Byrdes. Ed. John Wight, prob. c. 1551-1559; Re- 
edd. Collier, Percy Soc. vn; W. C. Hazlitt, Remains of Early Pop. 
Poetry of Engl. London, 1864-1866, in. p. 184. 



D (Didactic) 
Allone as I went vp and donn. Cf. 13 b. 

1. Ane aigit man twyss fourty yeiris. 

Kennedy. Mss. Bannatyne, 1568; Maitland, c. 1570-1590. Edd. Ram. 
say, The Ever Green, I. p. 115; Sibbald, Chron. Scot. Poetry, I. p. 
363; Dunbar, ed. Laing, n. p. 91; Bann. MS. Hunt. Club, p. 780. 

2. As I cam by a forrest syde. 

a. ms. Porkington 10, c. 1460. Ed. Appendix A, No. VI. 
6. ms. Bannatyne, 1568; beg., " Doun by ane rever as I red." Edd. 
Dunbar, ed. Laing, n. p. 51; Bann. MS. Hunt. Club, p. 133; Dunbar, 
Scot. Text Soc. n. p. 305, among " Poems Attributed to Dunbar." 

3. As I fared in a frith. 

Ms. Harl. 1704, scec. xv. Ed. Appendix A, No. vii. 

4. As I fared thorow a forest free. 

Ms. Ball. 354, scec. xvi, first half. Edd. Fliigel, Anglia, xxvi. p. 207; 
Dyboski, Ball. MS. 854, P- 88. 

5. As I me lend to a lend. 

Ms. Sloane 2593, c. 1450. Edd. Wright, Songs and Carols, Warton 
Club, p. 96; Fehr, Herrig's Archiv, evil. p. 50 (cf. Padelford, ibid., 
cxix. p. 427, No. 33 a). 

As I me walked in on mornyng. Cf. 9 b. 

6. As I stod in a ryalle haulle. 

Ms. Porkington 10, c. 1460. Ed. Halliwell, Early Engl. Misc. p. 62. 

7. As I walkyd apori a day. 

Ms. Cambr. Ff. 1. 6, scec. xv. Edd. Halliwell, Nugce Poet. p. 64; 
Polit. Relig. and Love Poems, p. 244. — Ms. Hawkins (cf. Phillipps 
sub. cat. 1895, p. 67; Brydges, Censura Literaria, Ed. 1815, I. pp. 136- 
137). Ed. Brydges, ibid., x. p. 150.— Ms. Addit. 11,307, f. 121 (tran- 
script by Haslewood, evidently from MS. Hawkins). Unprinted. — 
ms. Sloane 747, scec. xv, end, f. 95 ; beg., " As y can walke vpora a 
day." Unprinted. 

As I walked here by west. Cf. 8 (Balliol version). 



140 



THE CHANSON DAVENTUEE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 



8. As I wandrede her bi weste. 

Ms. Vernon, c. 1370. Edd. Varnhagen, Anglia, vn. p. 313; Minor 
Poems Vernon MS. II. p. 696 ; Patterson, M. Engl. Pen. Lyric, p. 54. — 
Ms. Addit. 22,283 (Simeon), c. 1380-1400. Collated with Vernon, 
Varnhagen, I. c. — Ms. Ball. 354, scec. xvi, first half; beg., "As I 
walked here by west." Edd. Fliigel, Anglia, xxvi. p. 160; Dyboski, 
Ball. MS. 354, p. 54. 

9. As I went in a mery mornywg. 

a. Ms. Bodl. Engl. Poet. e. 1, scec. xv, second half. Ed. Wright, 

Songs and Carols, Percy Soc. p. 57; Fliigel, Anglia, xxvi. p. 192; 

Patterson, M. Engl. Pen. Lyric, p. 102. 

6. Ms. Ball. 354, scec. xvi, first half; beg., "As I me walked in on 

mornyng." Ed. Fliigel, ibid., p. 191; Dyboski, Ball. MS. S5If, p. 3; 

Chambers and Sidgwick, p. 150. 

c. Ms. Bodl. Engl. Poet. e. 1; beg., "As I went me fore to solase." 

Ed. Wright, ibid., p. 74; Fliigel, ibid., p. 193; Patterson, ibid., p. 100. 

As I went me fore to solase. Cf. 9 c. 

As I went one my playing. Cf. 10 b. 

As y can walke vpon. a day. Cf. 7 (Sloane version). 

10. As y gan wandre in my walkmge. 

a. Ms. Lambeth 853, c. 1430. Ed. Hymns to V. and C. p. 83. 

b. Ms. Porkington 10, scec. xv, second half; beg., " As I went one my 
playing." Ed. Halliwell, Early Engl. Misc. p. 9. 

11. At a sarmoun ]>er I seet. 

Ms. Vernon, c. 1370. Ed. Minor Poems Vernon MS. n. p. 476. — Ms. 
Addit. 22,283 (Simeon), c. 1380-1400, f. 90b. Unprinted. 

12. Bi a forest as y gan walke. 

Ms. Lambeth 853, c. 1430. Ed. Hymns to V. and C. p. 95.— Ms. Pork- 
ington 10, scec. xv, second half, f. 203. Unprinted.— Ms. Addit. 
31,042, scec. xv, f. 122 b; beg., "By one foreste als I gan walke." 
Unprinted. 

13. Bi a wey wandryng as I went. 

a. Ms. Vernon, c. 1370. Edd. Varnhagen, Anglia, vn. p. 306; Minor 
Poems Vernon MS. n. p. 688.— Ms. Addit. 22,283 (Simeon), c. 1380- 
1400. Collated with Vernon, Varnhagen, I. c— Ms. Ashmole 343, 
scec. xv, beg., f. 169. Unprinted. 1 — Ms. Sloane 2593, c. 1450. Edd. 
Wright, Songs and Carols, Warton Club, p. 56 ; Fehr, Herrig's Archiv, 
cix. p. 59 (cf. Padelford, ibid., cxix. p. 429, No. xlh).— Ms. Cott. 
Calig. A. ii. scec. xv. Ed. Halliwell, Lydgate's Minor Poems, p. 225. 
—Princeton Univ. MS. Garrett, scec. xv, first half. Ed. Root, Engl. 
Stud. xiJ. p. 374.— Ms. Trin. Coll. Cambr. O. 9. 38 (James's No. 
1450), scec. xv. f. 25 b. Unprinted. 1 

Pointed out to me by Professor Carleton Brown. 



ALPHABETICAL KEGISTER 141 

&. The Abbay Walk; beg., " Allone as I went vp and doun." Henry- 
son, Scot. Text Soc. in. pp. 126 ff. 

14. Bi a wode as I gon ryde. 

a. Ms. Vernon, c. 1370. Ed. Minor Poems Vernon MS. u. p. 727. 

Ms. Addit. 22,283 (Simeon), c. 1380-1400. Unprinted. (Noted by 
Varnhagen, Anglia, vil. p. 281, No. 24.) 

6. Ms. Cott. Calig. A. n. scec. XV; beg., "By a wylde wodes syde." 
Ed. Halliwell, Lydgate's Minor Poems, p. 228. — Princeton Univ. MS. 
Garrett, scec. xv, first half; beg., "Be a wild wodis side." Ed. Root, 
Engl. Stud. xzx. p. 376. 

15. Bi west, vnder a wylde wode-syde. 

Ms. Vernon, c. 1370. Edd. Varnhagen, Anglia, vri. p. 282; Minor 
Poems Vernon MS. II. p. 658; collated with Addit. 22,283, Furnivall, 
Early Engl. Poems, p. 118.— Ms. Addit. 22,283 (Simeon), c. 1380- 
1400. Edd. Furnivall, I. c. ; collated with Vernon, Varnhagen, I. c. — 
Ms. Addit. 31,042, scec. xv. f. 123 b. Unprinted. 

By a fforest as I gan ryde. Cf. 16 b. 

16. By a forest syde, walkyng as I went. 

a. Ms. Douce 322, scec. xv. Ed. Twenty-six Poems, p. 143. — Ms. 
Harl. 1706, scec. xv. f. 16. Unprinted.— Ms. Roy. 18. A. X. scec. 
xv. f. 119 b. Unprinted.— Ms. Trin Coll. Cambr. R. 3. 21 (James's 
No. 601), scec. xv. f. 34. Unprinted.— Ms. Trin. Coll. Cambr. O. 9. 38 
(James's No. 1450), scec. xv. f. 24. Unprinted. — Ms. Bodl. 596, scec. 
xv. f. 21 b. Unprinted. 

6. Ms. Stonyhurst 23 (cited as Ms. 26, Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. II. 
App. p. 145), scec. xv (ascribed to xiv, end, or xv, beg., in the 
modern index) ; f. 61 b; beg., "By a fforest as I gan ryde." Un- 
printed. 

c. Ms. Harl. 2380, scec. xvi. f. 72 b; beg., " Thurght a forest als I 
went." Unprinted. 1 

By (be) a wylde wodes syde. Cf. 14 & (Cott. and Garrett 

versions). 
By one foreste als I gan walke. Cf. 12 (Addit. version). 
Donn be ane rever as I red. Cf. 2 b. 
Evere more where so ever I be, etc. (burden prefixed to 9 c) . 

17. Furth throw ane forrest as I fure. 

Ms. Bannatyne, 1568. Ed. Bann. MS. Hunt. Club> p. 118. 

*Mss. Harl., Royal, and Trin. Coll. Cambr. were pointed out to 
me by Professor Carleton Brown; for a transcript of MS. Stonyhurst, 
with notes on the ms., I am indebted to the kindness of Father 
William Bodkin, S. J., Rector of Stonyhurst College. 



142 THE CHANSON d'aVENTUBE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

18. Furth throcht yone finest [sic'}. 

Line 13 of poem beg., " Wa is the man that wantis." Registers, 
Charter Room, City of Aberdeen. Verses inserted apparently by 
Walter Cullen (b. 1526). Ed. The Miscellany of the Spalding Club, 
Aberdeen, 1841-1853, n. (1842), p. xxvii, n. 1; cf. pp. xxii, xxix. 
Colophon : " Finis quod Nicolsoun." — The first twelve lines are ap- 
parently intended as a kind of text for the adventure-poem; ef. 11. 

11-12: " Wo is the man that hes na gold nor geir to spend," 

with the poem proper, 11. 13-14: " Quhat wantis thow gold 

or geir to the ending day ? " 

19. I herd a playnt of grete pyte. 

Ms. Harl. 5396, scec. xv. Ed. Bel. Ant. I. p. 77. 

20. I see a rybaun ryche and newe. 

Ms. Cott. Calig. A. n. scec. xv. Ed. Halliwell, Lydgate's Minor 
Poems, p. 222. — Ms. Bannatyne, 1568 ; beg., " I saw ane rob riche 
of hew." Ed. Bann. MS. Hunt. Club, p. 225. 

I saw ane rob riche of hew. Cf. 20 (Bann. version). 

21. In a chambre as I stode. 

Ms. Rawl. poet. 36, scec. xv, second half. Ed. Appendix A, No. viii. 

22. In a chirche., )?er I con knel. 

a. Ms. Vernon, c. 1370. Edd. Varnhagen, Anglia, vn. p. 287; Minor 
Poems Vernon MS. II. p. 664.— Ms. Addit. 22,283 (Simeon), c. 1380- 
1400. Ed. Furnivall, Early Engl. Poems, p. 124; collated with Ver- 
non, Varnhagen, I. c. 

b. Ms. Advoc. Libr. Edinb. Jac. v. 7. 27, scec. xv; beg., "In a kyrke 
as [I] can knele." Ed. Turnbull, Visions of Tundale, p. 161. 

In a kyrke as [I] can knele. Cf. 22 b. 

23. In a monienyng of Maye whence medowes salle spryng. 
Ms. Addit. 31,042, scec. xv. Ed. Gollancz, in An Engl. Misc. Pre- 
sented to Dr. Furnivall, Oxford, 1901, p. 112, as The Quatrefoil of 
Love.— Ms. Bodl. Add. A. 106, scec. xv (later than Addit. 31,042). 
Collated with Addit. 31,042, Gollancz, I. c. — Early print, apparently 
from a slightly variant copy, by Wynkyn de Worde, n. d. (c. 1501- 
1535), with the title, The iiii leues of the true-loue. Formerly in 
the Heber and Corser Libraries; now in the Huth Library (cf. Haz- 
litt, Handblc. to Pop. Poet, and Dram. Lit., 1867, p. 349; The Euth 
Libr. Catal. of Printed Bks. MSS. etc., 1880, u. pp. 538 f.; Duff, etc., 
Hand Lists of Engl. Printers, 1501-1556. Pt. I. Wynkyn de Worde, 
etc., 1895, p. 22. Summary and extracts given by Collier, Bibl. and 
Grit. Account of Barest Bks., 1865, I. p. 293. 

24. In a noon tijd of a somers day. 

Ms. Lambeth 853, e. 1430. Ed. Hymns to V and G. p. 91.— Ms. Trin. 
Coll. Cambr. O. 9. 38 (James's No. 1450), scec. xv. f. 22; beg., "Yn 



ALPHABETICAL REGISTER 143 

a noone hete of somer day." Unprinted. 1 — Ms. Ball. 354, scec. xvi, 
first half; beg., "In a tyme of a somers day." Edd. Fliigel, Anglia, 
xxvi. p. 168; Dyboski, Ball. MS. 854, P- 80; Chambers and Sidgwick, 
p. 195. 

25. In a semely someres tyde. 

Ms. Addit. 32,578, scec. xv, first half. Ed. Hulme, M . Engl. Harrow- 
ing of Hell, E. E. T. S., Extra Ser. C. 1907, p. xxx. 

In a tyme of a somers day. Cf. 24 (Balliol version)- 

26. In blossemed buske I bode boote. 

Ms. Digby 102, scec. xv, first half; this poem c. 1400. Ed. Twenty-six 
Poems, p. 6. 

27. In tyl ane garth, wndtr ane reid rosier. 

Henryson, Scot. Text Soc. in. pp. 106 ff. Versions B, C, D beg., 
" Wythin a garth," etc. 

In what estate so euer I be, etc. (burden prefixed to D 
9 a, 6). 

28. Late whane Aurora of Tytane toke leve. 

Lydgate. Unprinted. (To appear in Lydgate, Ed. MacCracken, n. 
E. E. T. S., Extra Ser.; cf. I. p. xvii, No. 46).— Variant of 11. 1-12 
in the ms, beg., " Whane Aurora toke of Tytan hir leve." 

29. Lettres of gold writtin I fand. 

Ms. Bannatyne, 1568. Ed. Bann. MS. Hunt. Club, p. 138. Colophon: 
"Finis quod Wa[lter] Broun." 

Man, beware and wyse in dede (burden prefixed to D 35). 

30. On a dere day, by a dale so depe. 

Ms. Ball. 354, scec. xvi, first half. Edd. Fliigel, Anglia, xxvi. p. 180; 
Dyboski, Ball. MS. 354, p. 84. 

31. Quhen fair flora, }>e goddas of al flowris. 
Henryson, Scot. Text Soc. ill. pp. 114ff. 

32. Quhen Phebus in the ranie cloude. 

Ms. Maitland, c. 1570-1590. Ed. Pinkerton, Ane. Scot. Poems, p. 192. 
Thorow a forest pat was so longe. Cf . 35 (Balliol version) . 
Thurght a forest als I went. Cf. 16 c. 

33. Throwe a towne as y com ryde. 

Ms. Trin. Coll. Cambr. O. 9. 38 (James's No. 1450), scec. xv. Ed. 
Appendix A, No. ix. 

1 Pointed out to me by Professor Carleton Brown. 



144 THE CHANSON d'aVENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

34. Toward Aurora in the monyth of decembre. 

Lydgate. Unprinted. (To appear in Lydgate, Ed. MacCracken, n. 
E. E. T. S., Extra Ser.; cf. I. p. xxxi, No. 160). 

35. Under a forest that was so long. 

Ms. Bodl. Engl. Poet. e. 1. scec. xv, second half. Ed. Wright, Songs 
qnd Carols, Percy Soc. p. 28; Chambers and Sidgwick, p. 193. — 
Ms. Addit. 25,478, scec. xix, f. 50 (a transcript evidently from MS. 
Bodl.). Unprinted. — Ms. Ball. 354, scec. xvi, first half; beg., 
" Thorow a forest pat was so longe." Ed. Fliigel, AngUa, xxvi. p. 
267; Dyboski, Ball. MS. 354, p. 47. 

Wa is the man that wantis (line 1 of D 18). 

36. Walking allone amang thir levis grene. 

Ms. Bannatyne, 1568. Ed. Bann. MS. Hunt. Club, p. 145. 

37. Whan that phebus beemes schynyng as golde. 
Ms. Cott. Cleop. C. iv. scec. xv. Ed. Appendix A, No. x. 

Whane Aurora toke of Tytan hir leve. Cf. 28 (variant 

copy of 11. 1-12). 
Wythin a garth, vnder a rede rosere. Cf. 27 (Versions B, 

C, D). 
Yn a noone hete of somer day. Cf. 24 (Trin. Coll. Cambr. 

version) . 

M (Miscellaneous) 

1. Als I me sat my self allon. 

Ms. Egerton 1624, c. 1470 (?). Ed. Furnivall, Queene Elizabethes 
Achademy, etc., E. E. T. S., Eitra Ser. vm, 1869, p. 86. 

2. Als y yod on ay Mounday. 

a. Ms. Cott. Jul. A. v. scec. xiv. Edd. Eitson, Anc. Songs, p. 35; 
Finlay, Scottish Ballads, n. p. 168; Retrospective Review, Second 
Series, n. p. 326; Wright, Chron. of Pierre de Langtoft (Rolls 
Series), n. p. 452; Child, Ballads, No. 38, Appendix (extract). 
6. Ballad, The Wee Wee Man. Ed. Child, Ballads, No. 38; beg., 
"As I was wa'king all alone (by my lane, mine alone), / Between 
a water and a wa," Versions A, B, E, F; Versions C, D, and G 
begin respectively: " 'Twas down by Carterhaugh, father," and "As 
I gaed out to tak a walk (tak the air)." — Child points out the 
relation existing between the early poem and the ballad, but finds 
" no reason for deriving the ballad from the poem." 

3. As I came by a grene forest syde. 

Contained in the fragment, formerly Douce Fragm. 94 b, but now 
Rawlinson 4to 598 (10), of Wynkyn de Worde's Christmasse 



ALPHABETICAL REGISTER 145 

Carolles, 1521. Edd. Haslewood, Lit. Researches into Hist, of Bk. 
of St. Allan's, London, 1810, p. 58; Fliigel, Anglia, xn. p. 587 and 
xxvi. p. 194; Fliigel, Neuengl. Leseb. p. 151; Padelford, XVI. Gent. 
Lyrics, p. 75; Chambers and Sidgwick, p. 245; Dyboski, Ball. MS. 
35Jf, p. 186; Kickert, Carols, p. 139. — Ms. Ball. 354, scec. xvi, first 
half ; beg., " As I walked by a fforest side." Edd. Fliigel, Anglia, 
XXVI. p. 194; Padelford, ibid., p. 138; Dyboski, ibid., p. 103. 

4. As I gan wandre in on evynyng. 

Ms. Ball. 354, scec. xvi, first half. Ed. Fliigel, Anglia, xxvi. p. 169; 
Dyboski, Ball. MS. 354, p. 81. 

5. As I me walked ouer feldis wide. 

Ms. Lansdowne 762; this poem c. 1500. Ed. Skeat, Pierce the 
Ploughmans Crede, E. E. T. S., Orig. Ser. 30, 1867, p. 69. 

6. As I stode yn a parke streyght vpe by a tree. 

Ms. Bawl. C. 813, c. 1520-1540. Ed. Padelford, Anglia, xxxi. p. 350. 
— Ms. Cott. Jul. A. v, sosc. xvi, probably second half, f. 131 b (old 
no. 126 b). Unprinted. — Early Print, Bodleian Library, Wyl buclce 
his Testament. Imprinted at London by Wyllam [sic] Copland (fl. 
1556-1569) n. d. Beprinted by Haslewood, 1827, private circ. ; Halli- 
well, Lit. of XVI. and XVII. Cent. Illustrated, private circ, London, 
1851, p. 51. Copland's print presents the verse testament as preface 
to a prose treatise under the title, To make .Hi. courses of a Bucke, 
or of a Boo; in a transitional strophe not found in the MS. copies, 
the dying buck directs the poet to make in his memory a feast 
" Of Will buckes sonne, and that of cowrses thre." Colophon of 
prose treatise : " Finis, quod. Iohn Lacy." 

7. As I walked alone,/and mused on thynges. 

Of Abbayes, Crowley's Epigrammes, 1550. Ed. Cowper, Select Works 
of Robert Crowley, E. E. T. S., Extra Ser. xv, 1872, p. 7. 

As I walked by a fforest side. Cf. 3 (Balliol version). 

8. As I walked of late by one wood side. 

Percy Folio MS. c. 1650. Ed. Percy, Reliques, first edition, 1765, 
ii. Bk. 3, No. 1, p. 259 (270) ; Percy Folio MS. n. p. 174 (183). 
As I was wa'king all alone/Between a water and a wa. 
Cf. 2 b. 

9. As I was walking all alane,/I heard twa corbies making 

a mane. 
Ballad, The Twa Corbies. Ed. Child, Ballads, No. 26. 

10. As I went on 30I day. 

Ms. Sloane 2593, c. 1450. Edd. Wright, Songs and Carols, 1836, no. 
xx; Wright, Songs and Carols, Warton Club, p. 100; Chambers and 
Sidgwick, p. 220. 

10 



146 THE CHANSON d'aVENTURE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

11. Be a wildernes/As I did passe. 

Ms. Corporation of Tenterden, oldest Record Book; this entry 
apparently c. 1535-1541. Ed. Appendix A, No. XI. (Padelford in- 
cludes what is apparently a reference to this secular lament in a 
list of religious laments, XVI. Cent. Lyrics, p. xlii, note.) 

12. Bi a forrest as I gane fare. 

a. Ms. Porkington 10, c. 1460. Ed. Halliwell, Early Engl. Misc. p. 
43. 

b. Ms. Cambr. Ef. 5, 48, scec. xv; beg., " Ffer in frithe as I can 
fare." Ed. Hartshorne, Ancient Metr. Tales, London, 1829, p. 165. 

13. By a banke as I ley/musyrag in my mynd/on thyngs that 

were past. 
Wynkyn de Worde's Song Boolce, 1530. Edd. Fliigel, Anglia, xn. p. 
597; Neuengl. Leseb. p. 161; Imelmann, Shale. Jb. xxxix. p. 136. 
(Cf. an adaptation of this song and of A 7 in honour of James I., in 
Ravenscroft's Deuteromelia, 1609, beg., " By a bancke as I lay / 
musing on a thing that was past and gone, hey how." Edd. Chap- 
pell, Old Engl. Pop. Music, I. p. 49; Rimbault, Little Book, p. 55. 

14. Erly in a somraeristide. 

Ms. Lambeth 306; this poem c. 1465. Ed. Polit. Relig. and Love 
Poems, p. 1. 

Ffer in frithe as I can fare. Cf. 12 b. 

15. I herde a carpyng of a clerk. 

Ms. Sloane 2593, c. 1450. Edd. Ritson, Anc. Songs, p. 71; Wright, 
Songs and Carols, 1836, No. x; Wright, Songs and Carols, Warton 
Club, p. 42; Child, Ballads, No. 115. 

16. In a ffresshe mornyng among the Howrys. 

Ms. Harl. 2252; this poem not before 1536. Edd. Furnivall and 
Morfill, Ballads from MSS. Ballad Soc. London and Hertford, 
1868-1873, i. p. 402 (409) ; Fliigel, Neuengl. Leseb. p. 165. 

17. In a gloriws garden grene. 

Ms. Addit. 5465,, c. 1500. Edd. Rimbault, Little Book, No. 2, p. 24; 
Furnivall, Captain Cox, p. clix; Fliigel, Neuengl. Leseb. p. 159. 

18. In a mornyng of May, as I lay on slepyng. 

Ms. Cambr. Ff. 5. 48, scec. xv. Ed. Halliwell, Nugce Poet. p. 37. 

19. In december, when the dayes draw to be short. 

Ms. Harl. 372, i, 114; this poem, copied evidently from some other 
MS., dates c. 1550. Unprinted (?). — Percy's Reliques, first edition, 
1765, II. Bk. 2, No. 3, p. 112 (129), where the poem is said to be 
" preserved in the Pepys collection, British Museum, and Strype's 
Mem. of Cranmer." 



ALPHABETICAL REGISTER 147 

20. [In Ma]y whan euery herte is lyghte/[And f]ayre flourys 

doth sprede and springe. 1 
Ms. Harl. 3952, scec. xv; this fragment probably c. 1483. Ed. 
Appendix A, No. xn. 

Kyrie, so kyrie, Jankyn syngyt merie, etc. (burden prefixed 
to M 10). 

21. Musing allone this hinder nicht. 
Dunbar, Scot. Text Soc. n. p. 92. 

Eobyn lyjth in grene wode bowndy/i (burden prefixed to 

M 15). 
This day day dawes (burden prefixed to M 17). 

22. Thorow out a palys as I gan passe. 

Ms. Cambr. Hh. 4. 12, scec. xv, second half; this poem c. 1441. 
Ed. Hardwick, Antiquarian Communications, Cambr. Antiq. Soc. 
Cambridge, 1859, I. p. 177.— Ms. Ball. 354, scec. xvi, first half. Edd. 
Wright, Polit. Poems and Songs (Kolls Series), London, 1859-1861, 
ii. p. 205; Flugel, Anglia, xxvi. p. 177; Dyboski, Ball. MS. 35J h 
p. 95. 

23. When that Aurora illumynath lyjght. 

Ms. Addit. 18,752, scec. xrv-xvi; this poem, scec. xvi, before 1536. 
Ed. Reed, Anglia, xxxin. p. 346. 

24. When the wyntar wynddys ar vanished away. 

Ms. Ashmole 48, scec. xvi. middle. Ed. Wright, Songs and Ball. 
Roxb. Club, p. 145. Colophon: "Finis, quod Johan Walles." 

* Pointed out to me by Professor Carleton Brown. 



APPENDIX C 



SUPPLEMENTARY REGISTER OF OTHER PIECES 
CITED IN THE DISCUSSION 



[The pieces included are either Middle English poems comparable 
in certain features to the chansons d'aventure, or chansons d'aventure 
proper, dating later than 1550. The list is not exhaustive, but merely- 
illustrative.] 

A babe is born, to blys vs brynge/I hard a mayd lulley & 

synge (Dyboski, Ball. MS. 354, p. 21) 73n 

[a] daye of may ffor my solas 34n 

A Robyn/joly Robyn 57n 

After mydnyght, when dremes dothe fawll 77n 

All after pleasures as I rid one day 98 

All in a garden green 57n 

A-lone walkyng/and oft musing (Herrig's Archiv, evil. 

p. 59, where Fehr prints "I lone walkyng," etc.) . 92n 

Alone walking, In thought pleyning • . 41n 

Als j me wente Jus Endres daye {Thomas of Erceldoune) . 96-97 

Ane fare sweit may of mony one 6 In 

As I heard tell this other yeere {John the Reeve, 1. 7) . 25n 
As I me walked hard by a riueers side hey no no . . . 58n 
As I walked forth in a morninge tyde {Shirourn Ballads, 

p. 260) 98-99 

As I went by an Hospital {Bagford Ballads, i. p. 24) . . 49n 

As I went up a woodland walk 99 

As thro' a gay wood I happened to pass {Pilgrim's Oar- 
land, p. 4) • 49n 

But late in place A pretye lasse 48n 

By a bancke as I lay /musing on a thing that was past and 

gone, hey how Appendix B, under M 13 

Come over the woodes fair and green . ., . . . 57n, 61n, 65n 
148 



SUPPLEMENTAKY EEGISTER 149 

Downe Plumton Parke as I did passe (Shirbum Ballads, 

p. 20; refrain) • .98-99 

For Jn self, man, ]>ou may see (" How judicare come in 

erede ") • 82n 

Here in this Song you may behold and see (preface to 

ballad, Roxburghe Ballads, n. p. 329) . . . . . 44n 
Hey, troly lory lo, maid, whither go yon? . . . 57n, 6 In, 65n 
I hard a maydyn wepe/ffor here sonnys passyon . . . 71n 

I heard a mess of merry shepherds sing 73n 

I loue walkyng/and oft musyng (cf. " A-lone walkyng/ 
and oft musing," above). 

I saw a fayr maydyn syttyn and synge 73n 

I saw a swete semly syght (Eickert, Carols, p. 59) . 24, 73n 

I saw my lady weep(ing) 72n 

In a tabernacle of a tour 24, 71n 

In the merry moneth of May 98 

Late in the morning, as I abroad was walking (Roxburghe 

Ballads, II. p. 329) 44n 

Man, loke thou have this gys (Wright, Songs and Carols, 

Warton Club, p. 1) 82n 

My feerful dreme neuyr forgete can I 7 In 

My self walkyng all allone {Rel. Ant I. p. 26) . . . 24, 41n 
Not long agoe with bow in hande (poem on the " whyte ") 63n 

On a faire morning, as I came by the way 59n 

So blessid a sight it was to see (Dyboski, Ball MS. 85^, 

p. 23) 73n 

Sodenly A-frayd, halfe wakynge, halfe slepyng (line 1 of 

"Who cannot wepe,") 71n 

There was a maid this other day {Mother Wathin's Ale) . 49n 
To lodge yt was my lucke of late (line 1 of song with re- 
frain, " Downe Plumton Parke ") 98-99 

To see the maydyn wepe her sownes passion (Dyboski, Ball. 

MS. 85^,-p. 41) 72n 

There is a Child born of our blessed Virgin/I heard a 
Maid lullaby to sing (Sylvester, Christmas Carols, 

p. 41) 73n 

Toward the ende of frosty January 82n 

This endurs nyght/I sawe a syght 26n, 73n 



150 THE CHANSON d'aVENTUKE IN MIDDLE ENGLISH 

J?is endres nyght About mydayght [sic] .... 26n, 73n 
This hundir jeir I hard be tald (The Bludy 8 eric) . . . 25n 

Thys indrys day befel a stryfe . . 52n 

TJndir a park iul prudently pyght 33n, 73n 

Upon a holy Saintes Eve 80n, 98 

When Hyems with his hory frostes (poem on " Robin 

redde-brest") 63n 

When that byrdes be brought to rest 61n 

Who cannot wepe 71n 

Yt was my chance for to advance myself not long agoe . 63n 



SUBJECT INDEX 



Allegorical figures in chansons d'a- 

venture: French, 8n; English, 38. 
Birds in chansons d'aventure — 

French, 15. 

English, 39, 58-60, 74-77, 82-87, 
91; used as disguise, 39 n, 63, 
78-80, 90. 
Burdens, 28; prefixed, 8 n, 37 n; re- 
curring, 8 n, 60 n; changing, 50 n; 

Latin, 37 n. 
Chanson d'aventure — 

the type: definition of, 1-2; ter- 
minology, 2-3, 9n; sub- types, 
2, 9n. 

French, 3-24. 

English: lyric, dramatic, and nar- 
rative character of, 38-41; ex- 
tent of personal element in, 38- 
39, 83-85, 88-91; extent of poet's 
role in, 35, 41-42; types of ac- 
tors in, 38-40; visionary ten- 
dencies in, 40-41; clerkly ele- 
ments in, 45, 49 n, 92-3, 94-5; 
slight aristocratic element in, 
45, 64-67; ballad elements in, 
43-44 n, 62 n, 63-64; carol ele- 
ments in, 68-74 (passim), 91; 
compared with French, 44 
(form), 92-93 (themes); in- 
fluenced directly by French, 
probably or certainly, 29, 44, 
47-48, 59 n, 63 n, 67 n, 78 n, 80. 
Chanson dramatique — 

French: amorous, 9-15; religious, 
didactic, occasional, 21-22. 

English: amorous, 47-60; reli- 
gious, 68-77; didactic and mis- 
cellaneous, 88-93. 
Christ, lament of, 69-71. 
Dialogues between lovers: French, 

14; English, 57-58, 61 n, 98. 



Dialogues between Mary and Christ, 

72-73. 
Husband's lament: French, 14; 

English, 56-57. 
Inscriptions in English chansons 

d'aventure, 39, 82. 
Lover's lament: French, 14; Eng- 
lish, 56. 
Maiden's lament — 

French: amorous, 10-11; religi- 
ous, 19 n. 
English: amorous, 47-50; religi- 
ous, 69-71; didactic, 82, 86-87; 
political, 89, 90. 
Maiden's song of joy — 

Fiench: amorous, lacking, 10 n. 
English: religious, 68-69; politi- 
cal, 89-90. 
Mai marine, lament of — 

French: usual type, 11-14; re- 
ligious adaptation, 68 n. 
English, 50-56. 
Mary, lament of, 69-71. 
Narrative setting — 

French: analyzed, 5-9; double 
setting, 4-5 n ; repeated setting, 
22 n ; details allegorized, 7 n. 
English: analyzed, 25-37; double 
setting, 42-43; repeated setting, 
42; details allegorized, 33; de- 
tails altered to conform to na- 
ture of the adventure, 26, 28- 
29, 30, 33-37; details of, bor- 
rowed by other poetic types, 
25 n, 26 n; compared with nar- 
rative settings in non-lyric 
types, 42 n, 55-56, 76-77 n, 96- 
98; proverbial phrases in (On 
Wednesday, wandering by the 
way, here by west), 25-26 n, 32. 
151 



152 



SUBJECT INDEX 



Pastourelle — 

French: amorous, 15-18; religious, 

19-21. 
English: amorous, 61-67; unde- 
veloped, 61 n, 64-65; religious, 
77-80. 
Pastourelle, Anglo-Norman and Lat- 
in, 20 n, 61 n. 
Pastourelle objective — 
terminology, 9-10 n. 
French, 14, 21. 

English: amorous, 58; religious, 
73-74. 
Poet's soliloquy — 

French: amorous, 18; religious, 
21. 



amorous, 67 ; religious, 
78, 80-81; didactic, etc., 41; 
miscellaneous, 88 n. 
Scotch features in chanson d'aven- 
ture: repeated setting, 42, 45; re- 
alism and vivacity, 28 n, 63 n, 66; 
satiric tendency, 50-56. 
Symbols, images, etc., in chanson 
d'aventure: French, 8n; English, 
39. 
Women, prominence of in chansons 
d'aventure : French, 4, 8 n, 10, 
14 n, 16 n; English, Ch. in, § A 
(passim), 68, 72, 82, 88. 



VITA 

I, Helen Estabrook Sandison, daughter of Howard and 
Frances Estabrook Sandison, was born in Terre Haute, 
Indiana, September 16, 1884. I received my early educa- 
tion in the public schools of Terre Haute; in 1902 I entered 
Bryn Mawr College, from which I received the degrees of 
Bachelor of Arts in 1906 and Master of Arts in 1907. 

During the year 1906-1907 I studied at Bryn Mawr as 
a graduate Scholar in English and Latin. In 1907-1908 I 
served as Assistant Principal and teacher of English and 
Latin in the High School at Brookville, Indiana. I returned 
to Bryn Mawr in the autumn of 1908 as Eesident Eellow in 
English, and in the year 1909-1910 I held a specially 
awarded European Fellowship which enabled me to carry 
on my research in England, in the Libraries of Oxford, 
Cambridge, and the British Museum. In the autumn of 
1910 I resumed my studies at Bryn Mawr as a Scholar in 
English. My graduate work at Bryn Mawr has been devoted 
to English Language, my major subject, and to English 
Literature and Latin, my minor subjects. It has been done 
under the direction of Professors Brown, Clark, Hatcher, 
and Upham in the Department of English, and Professors 
Wheeler and Frank in the Department of Latin. At the 
University of Oxford I attended courses given by Professors 
Napier and Madan. 

In 1910 I published an article under the title, " Quin- 
decim Signa ante Iudicium: A Contribution to the History 
of the Latin Versions of the Legend," in the Archiv fur das 
Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen (Bd. cxxiv, 
pp. 73-82), and another on "Spenser's 'Lost' Works and 
their Probable Kelation to his Faerie Queene " in the Publi- 
cations of the Modern Language Association of America (Vol. 
xxv, pp. 134-151). 



The accompanying dissertation was presented to the 
Faculty of Bryn Mawr College in May, 1911, in partial 
fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of 
Philosophy. Further information relating to the dissertation 
and acknowledgments of assistance received in preparing it 
will be found in the Preface. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

imiwiiiH, 

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